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THE  TIDEWAY 


BY 

JOHN  AYSCOUGH  :P^'^^' 

Author  of  "Faustula,"  "Saints  and  Places," 
"French  Windows,"  etc. 


New  York,  Cincinnati,  Chicago 

BENZIGER  BROTHERS 

PUBLISHERS  OF  RENZIGER'S  MAGAZINE 
I918 


Copyright,  1918,  by  Benziger  Brothers 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

The  Sacristans 7 

The  Lady  OF  THE  DuNESHORE     ....     35 

Old  Wine  and  New  Bottles      .      .      .      .107 

A  Franco-American  Encounter     .      .      .147 

For  Surmise 191 

The  Awakening  OF  Miss  GiRVAN     .      .      .219 

A  Prelude  in  Prose 259 

Maneuvers 271 

Athelmar 284 

Fring 305 

Her  Ladyship 320 

By  the  Way 336 

"Poor  Eleanor" 347 

John  Hardwick's  Luck 363 

A  Prelude  in  Winter 384 

5 


THE  TIDEWAY 

THE  SACRISTANS 


THE  two  churches  faced  each  other,  with  the  open 
space  of  the  Naumachia  between  them,  in  the 

midst  of  which  was  the  stone  ship,  like  the  one  in  the 
Piazza  de  Spagna  at  Rome,  that  gave  the  place  its 
name. 

Santa  Venera  is  a  very  old  place,  much  older  than 
its  name,  unless  they  are  right  who  declare  that  no 
such  Christian  saint  ever  existed  as  Venera,  and  that 
the  name  is  simply  a  variant  of  venere,  and  nothing 
more  or  less  than  the  Italian  form  of  the  name  of  the 
goddess  of  love.  These  people  maintain  that  the 
hill-town  of  Aphrodisia  stood  on  this  site,  and  that 
the  church  of  Santa  Venera,  in  the  Naumachia,  was 
a  temple  of  Aphrodite  seven  hundred  years  before 
Christianity  had  any  martyrs.  Anyway,  the  place 
is  admittedly  an  ancient  Greek  colony,  founded  from 
Colchis,  a  year  or  two  later  than  Syracuse.  And  en- 
thusiasts affirm  that  the  people  have  Greek  faces 
still,  and  that  their  speech  is  thickly  strewn  with  Hel- 
lenisms. Throughout  Sicily,  we  are  constantly  told, 
there  are  three  strongly  marked  types:  the  Punic, 
the  Greek,  the  S.iracenic;  and  Santa  Venera  is  in  the 
heart  of  the  Greek  sphere. 

In  all  the  world  no  place  can  be  more  exquisitely 
hung  between  the  mountains  and  the  sea — the  Ion- 
ian Sea,  where  gods  sailed  and  heroes  who  were  the 
sons  of  gods.  I(  is  not  half  a  mile  inland,  but  a 
thousand  feet  above  the  saffron  belt  of  shore;  and 
from  the  Naumachia  all  the  mountain  gorges  of 
Calabria,  across  the  strait,  are  mysteriously  visible. 

7 


8  THE  TIDEfVAY 

No  one  could  believe  those  are  real  mountains,  ly- 
ing disclosed,  yet  veiled,  in  the  light  of  which  our 
poet  sang,  such  a  light,  as  surely,  elsewhere,  never 
was  on  sea  or  land. 

Maso  was  the  sacristan  of  Santa  Venera,  and 
Tito  the  sacristan  of  the  Pieta ;  and  their  churches 
faced  each  other.  Both  had  been  temples,  and  in 
both  the  old  heathen  columns  had  been  built  into  the 
Christian  walls.  Maso's  church  was  much  the  big- 
ger; it  was,  in  fact,  the  cathedral,  for  Santa  Venera 
has  a  bishop ;  all  the  same,  it  was  quite  a  small  build- 
ing, much  smaller  than  any  church  in  all  Northhamp- 
tonshire.  But  Tito's  was  more  fashionable,  and,  as 
a  consequence,  much  smarter.  One  side-altar  in  the 
Pieta  possessed  more  artificial  flowers  than  the 
whole  of  Santa  Venera  could  boast  of,  including  the 
high  altar;  and  such  facts  as  these  Tito  was  studious 
to  impress  on  Maso's  recollection. 

Tito  was,  naturally,  much  better  off  than  Maso; 
and  he  liked  to  show  it.  Maso  got  very  little  be- 
yond his  wages,  and  they  were  only  ten  scudi  a  month 
— for  the  church  in  those  parts  still  keeps  its  ac- 
counts in  scudi,  though  such  a  coin  has  not  existed 
for  half  a  century.  Only  the  priests  belonging  to 
the  church  ever  said  Mass  at  Santa  Venera,  and  they 
simply  looked  on  Maso  as  their  own  servant;  of 
course,  they  never  tipped  him. 

But  several  "congregations"  were  established  in 
the  Pieta,  such  as  the  Figlie  di  Maria,  and  the  San- 
tisstmi  Cuori.  And  Tito  drew  a  pleasing  revenue 
from  each  of  them.  Moreover,  the  Madonna  of 
the  Pieta  was  miraculous,  and  plenty  of  tourist 
priests  who  wished  to  give  a  pious  touch  of  pilgrim- 
age to  their  holiday  would  come  and  say  Mass  at 
her  altar.  Tito,  on  these  occasions,  so  managed 
matters  that  no  priest  could  get  out  of  the  sacristy 
without  giving  him  at  least  a  franc  for  the  murky 


THE  SACRISTANS  9 

black  coffee  he  would  bring  him  in  a  thick  tumbler. 
Added  to  all  this,  there  were  the  candles  that  the 
faithful  offered  to  the  Madonna  that  was  so  noto- 
riously miraculous,  and  which  they  had  to  buy  of 
Tito.  They  were  in  four  sizes:  those  at  two  soldi, 
which  cost  Tito  two  francs  the  hundred;  those  at 
five  soldi,  which  cost  him  one  franc  a  dozen;  those 
at  half  a  lira,  for  which  he  paid  two  and  one-half 
lire  the  dozen;  and  very  grand  ones  at  a  franc  each 
(painted  gilt  or  ornamented),  for  which  Tito  had 
to  pay  five  lire  the  dozen. 

As  Tito  always  took  care  the  candles  should  by  no 
means  burn  out,  he  managed  another  very  comfort- 
able profit  that  way.  But  the  correctness  of  his 
business  instincts  was  sufficiently  shown  by  his  choos- 
ing the  greatest  proportion  of  profit  should  be  on  the 
cheapest  candles,  of  which  the  sale  would  naturally 
be  the  most  extensive. 

Maso  advertised  his  comparative  poverty  by  a 
personal  dirtiness  that  would  have  astounded  any 
beholder  whose  ideas  of  Sicily  were  drawn  from 
clever  English  or  American  novels.  Not  that  Maso 
himself  considered  dirtiness  any  advertisement  of 
anything;  he  merely  regarded  cleanliness  as  foppish. 

All  the  same  he  liked  to  be  thought  poorer  than 
he  actually  was;  it  made  him  feel  a  sort  of  credit- 
balance  of  possession. 

Tito,  on  the  other  hand,  was  smart  and  rather 
clean  to  the  naked  eye;  only  the  hands,  face  and 
neck  after  all  are  visible  to  it.  These  Tito  not  only 
washed,  but  he  used  scented,  very  highly  scented 
soap  to  them.     So  that  he  smelt  like  a  muskrat. 

Tito  saw  no  use  in  opulence,  unless  one  looked 
affluent;  and  he  endeavored,  with  some  local  success, 
to  appear  more  affluent  than  he  really  was.  No  one 
had  ever  seen  Maso  on  the  day  he  shaved,  though 
he  was  not  understood  to  grow  a  beard,  any  more 


lo  THE  TIDEWAY 

than  the  other  ecclesiastical  persons  of  Santa  Ven- 
era.  Tito,  no  doubt,  was  far  from  being  shaved 
daily;  for  even  his  extravagance  had  its  limits,  and 
daily  shaving  would  have  seemed  a  profligate  ex- 
travagance indeed  to  the  Sicilians  of  the  province  of 
Catania.  But  on  his  unshaved  days  Tito  never 
seemed  to  be  in  evidence.  Moreover,  he  always 
wore  a  coat,  whereas  Maso  only  wore  his  when  he 
happened  to  be  serving  Mass;  he  had  a  pair,  too,  of 
celluloid  cuffs  with  immense  solitaire  studs  (repre- 
senting the  King  and  Queen  of  Italy,  a  good  deal 
flushed  by  their  regalia),  and  he  wore  collars  and  a 
blood-colored  necktie;  shoes  also,  with  intensely 
pointed  toes,  while  Maso's  ragged  stockings  were 
very  little  concealed  by  a  pair  of  raw  hide  sandals. 

Finally,  Maso  was  eighty-three,  though  quite  una- 
ware of  the  fact,  and  had  a  wife  nearly  as  old,  quite 
as  dirty,  more  ill-tempered  and  miserly  and  ignorant 
than  himself.  Tito  was  a  bachelor,  and  considered 
himself  about  seven  and  twenty. 

"Four  priests  from  Malta  said  Mass  at  the  'Mir- 
aculous' to-day,"  observed  Tito  with  detachment. 
He  had  nothing  to  do.  Maso  was  cobbling  a  boot, 
and  Tito  liked  watching  him ;  it  emphasized  his  own 
leisure.  For  Tito  had  no  trade,  outside  his  sacrls- 
tanship,  though  he  often  earned  some  francs  by  wait- 
ing at  one  of  the  hotels,  or  at  the  bar  in  the  Teatro 
Elena. 

So  now  he  leaned  against  the  doorpost  with  his 
fine  eyes  bent  on  the  mustard-colored  boot,  with 
high  top  for  the  trousers  to  button  into,  at  which 
the  old  man  was  working. 

"That's  where  England  begins,"  observed  Maso; 
and  Tito  nodded. 

"But  these  were  not  English,"  he  explained. 
"Maltese." 

Maso  raised  his  head  and  spat  far  out  into  the 


THE  SACRISTANS  ii 

sunlight  J  It  was  his  only  recreation,  and  cost  nothing. 

Tito  made  a  cigarette  and  lighted  it. 

"That  makes  eleven  this  month,"  he  remarked, 
"and  to-day  we  have  the  seventeenth  only." 

"Eleven  francs?" 

"No.  But  fifteen  francs  fifty.  One  gave  me 
five  francs ;  he  was  English,  and  another  two  francs 
fifty.  It  should  have  been  twenty-five  francs  fifty, 
but  the  ten  franc  note  the  American  gave  me  was  a 
bad  one." 

Maso  began  to  look  pleasanter;  a  friend's  dissap- 
polntment  is  exhilarating.  "The  money  Is  all  bad 
in  America,"  he  asserted  with  a  fine  independence  of 
data. 

"The  note  was  Italian,"  observed  Tito. 

Maso  smacked  the  sole  of  the  boot  with  a  flat  mal- 
let, as  though  he  were  a  Prince  of  Wales  declaring 
that  It  was  well  and  truly  laid.  Tito  stared  over 
his  head  Into  the  house,  whence  came  the  sound  of 
slipshod  feet  moving  about.  He  knew  It  was  not 
PIppa — she  was  not  at  all  slipshod — without  seeing 
her,  for  It  seemed  quite  dark  In  there  from  where 
he  stood  In  the  hot  sunlight:  he  knew  It  was  her 
grandmother.  All  the  same  he  called  out,  "It  goes 
well,  Pippa?" 

Old  Lucia  was  as  deaf  as  a  post.  There  came  no 
answer  from  her;  but  Maso  muttered: 

"She  Is  not.  She  Is  gone  to  Glardlnl.  This  one 
is  the  old  she."  He  did  not  look  up;  nor  did  he 
speak  very  plainly,  for  he  had  a  piece  of  waxed 
thread  In  his  mouth.     But  Tito  heard  him. 

"She  Is  getting  very  deaf,"  he  observed;  as  though 
he  were  not  thinking  of  PIppa. 

"When  they  become  old  they  are  like  that," 
snapped  Maso. 

He  spoke  with  impatient  tolerance,  as  If  he  him- 
self were  a  young  fellow  still. 


12  THE  TIDEWAY 

"Is  it  not  bad  to  suck  that?"  inquired  Tito.  "Bad 
for  the  stomach?" — with  a  slight  tap  on  his  own 
chest. 

"I  do  it,"  replied  Maso.  "It  Is  my  custom."  He 
went  on  with  his  boot;  and  Tito  looked  across  the 
Naumachia  to  a  gap  between  the  houses  in  which  all 
Calabria  was  framed.  He  had  not  the  least  idea 
that  it  was  beautiful. 

"To  bite  the  wax  thread — that  is  my  custom," 
continued  Maso.  "Others  smoke  paper  with  minced 
tobacco  inside.  The  wax  thread  tastes  also  bitter. 
I  prefer  it." 

Suddenly  he  withdrew  the  thread  from  his  teeth 
and  hospitably  offered  It  to  his  visitor.  "Taste !" 
he  said.      "It  is  bitter  like  the  v/et  end  of  cigars." 

But  Tito  waved  a  refusal,  politely. 

"I  believe,"  he  declared  gravely. 

It  was  nearly  eleven  o'clock,  and  the  sun  was  very 
hot.  He  stepped  in  over  Maso's  legs;  and  pres- 
ently could  see  Lucia  plainly  enough  as  she  slopped 
about  the  floor.  There  was  a  smell  of  wood  smoke 
and  onions  and  leather,  especially  the  two  latter. 
Tito  remembered  complacently  how  much  more  com- 
fortable his  own  house  was,  though  he  was  a  bache- 
lor. 

All  the  same,  old  Lucia  considered  that  she  was 
having  a  rather  special  clean-up  to-day.  She  pulled 
things  out  of  their  places  and  presently  pushed  them 
back  again;  and  she  turned  a  few  things  out  of 
drawers  into  cupboards.  One  cupboard  opened 
with  some  difficulty;  Inside  were  a  few  jars  of  the 
common  glazed  ware  made  in  the  place;  jars  of  per- 
fect shapes  and  satisfying  tone  of  color. 

Lucia  was  short,  and  the  cupboard  rather  high 
up;  she  had  to  stretch  on  tip-toe  to  grope  In  It. 
Presently  she  pulled  a  jar  down  altogether;  it  fell  to 
the   birch   floor   and   was   smashed   there.        In   a 


THE  SACRISTANS  13 

moment  the  uneven,  broken  flooring  was  strewn  with 
gold  coins. 

II 

Tito  strolled  across  the  Naumachia  to  his  own 
church.  He  had  nothing  to  do  there;  but  he  had 
observed  casually  to  Maso  that  the  ladies  (i.e.,  of 
the  Santissimi  Cuori)  had  a  conference  this  after- 
noon, and  he  must  prepare  for  it.  As  a  matter  of 
fact  he  had  prepared  already.  Not  that  he  had  any 
very  particular  object  in  lying.  It  was,  as  Maso 
had  said,  his  custom;  he  did  it.  Nor  would  he  have 
been  at  all  affected  by  the  knowledge  that  the  old 
man  never  believed  him.  His  custom  would  have 
remained  unaltered. 

"I  go,"  he  had  said,  "to  make  ready  for  the 
Jesuit,  the  Jesuit  of  the  ladies.  He  comes  from 
Acireale  to-day." 

Maso  grunted.  He  did  not  like  Jesuits,  though 
he  did  not  know  why ;  he  thought  it  right.  So  Tito 
walked  off;  and  disappeared  into  the  Pieta.  He 
had  not  taken  any  notice  at  all  of  the  gold  pieces. 
Only  he  had  said  when  the  jar  smashed,  "It  will  be 
said  I  have  the  'evil  eye' !"  And  he  pretended  to 
make  horns  against  himself.  "I  go  or  Maso  will 
want  me  to  buy  him  a  new  jar,  and  that  one  I  saw 
had  no  spout,  and  was  cracked  already." 

Thus,  as  he  felt,  with  infinite  tact  did  he  cover 
his  immediate  retreat,  and  leave  Maso  to  gather  up 
his  money. 

Would  Lucia  get  a  beating?  he  wondered.  He 
did  not  care  in  the  least  whether  she  did  or  no.  He 
had  no  grudge  against  her,  and  no  fancy  for  her. 
He  was  quite  indifferent.  That  his  enemies  should 
be  hurt  would  please  him;  that  his  friends  should 
get  good  luck  did  not  annoy  him,  so  long  as  their 


14  THE  TIDEWAY 

luck  was  not  better  than  his  own.      For  the  rest  he 
thought  only  of  himself. 

He  let  himself  out  of  the  sacristy  door  of  the 
church,  having  first  locked  the  big  door  towards  the 
Naumachia  from  inside.  As  he  passed  the  high 
altar  he  did  not  genuflect;  there  was  no  one  to  see 
him,  and  he  was  bored  by  all  the  observances  of 
religion.  That  was  the  worst  of  being  a  sacristan. 
He  had  no  religion  at  all,  and  it  was  tiresome  to 
have  to  pretend  to  any.  He  liked  his  occasional 
duties  at  the  Teatro  Elena  much  better.  For  that 
one  thing  he  had  been  sorry  when  his  military  ser- 
vice was  over;  during  that  time  he  had  certainly 
made  no  show  of  religion  or  morality. 

The  sacristy  door  opened  on  to  a  narrow,  steep 
path,  descending  between  garden  walls  to  the  road 
down  to  Giardini.  Tito  intended  to  go  to  meet 
Pippa  as  she  came  back.  There  was  no  hurry,  and 
it  was  shady  here  between  the  high  walls.  Tito  en- 
joyed his  leisure,  and  he  was  thinking  of  other  pleas- 
ant things  besides  Maso's  handsome  granddaughter; 
of  those  gold  pieces,  for  instance;  of  the  fact  that 
Pippa  was  the  old  sacristan's  only  descendant  or 
relative ;  and  of  that  trick  he  had  of  chewing  the  wax 
thread,  piece  after  piece,  all  day  long.  After  nearly 
a  quarter  of  a  mile  the  descent  ends  in  steps,  and  the 
steps  end  in  the  broad,  winding  carriage  road.  Tito 
lay  on  the  bank  and  continued  to  enjoy  his  leisure. 
After  all,  it  was  unquestionably  less  trouble  to  be 
sacristan  of  the  Pieta  than  a  soldier,  and  much  more 
remunerative.  Over  against  him  Etna  hung  in  the 
sky;  but  all  her  beauties  were  invisible  to  him. 
Beauty  is  in  the  eyes.  And  yet  Tito's  own  eyes  were 
beautiful  enough;  he  was  well  used  to  the  undis- 
guised admiration  artists  betrayed  for  him;  and  had 
often  earned  easy  money  as  a  model.  Perhaps  in 
him  the  pure  Greek  type  was  uppermost,  but  the 


THE  SACRISTANS  15 

Saracenic  strain  that  struggled  with  it  only  bettered 
it. 

It  would  be  hard  to  find  a  more  opulent  example 
of  physical  beauty  than  Tito — but  that  he  should 
be  a  Christian !  His  very  beauty  belied  his  super- 
ficial Christianity;  it  was  pagan;  classical,  with  just 
suspicions  of  the  Arabic,  the  Oriental.  Oddly 
enough,  the  man,  worthless  in  fifty  ways,  had  scarce- 
ly any  personal  vanity.  He  was  much  vainer  of  his 
clothes.  He  had  bought  those  for  himself,  and  they 
had  cost  much ;  and  Tito  deeply  respected  what  was 
expensive.  His  beauty  had  been  given  him,  and 
Tito  hardly  ever  valued  a  free  gift,  unless  it  were 
money,  and  even  then  he  cared  less  for  it  than  for 
money  he  had  acquired  by  his  own  scheming  and 
unscrupulosity. 

Besides,  there  were  other  young  men  in  Santa 
Venera  nearly  as  handsome  as  himself,  but  there 
were  none  of  his  class  so  smartly  dressed.  Never- 
theless, Tito  consciously  valued  his  appearance  as  an 
asset,  for  to  be  vain  of  a  possession  and  to  be  aware 
of  it  are  two  different  things.  And  Tito  knew  that 
his  assets  were  not  so  many  that  the  most  obvious 
of  them  could  be  left  out  of  calculation. 

For  Tito  was  desperately  in  want  of  money.  He 
knew  very  well  that  the  appearance,  rather  than  the 
reality,  of  affluence  had  all  along  been  his;  to  a  repu- 
tation for  wealth  he  had  sedulously  lived  up,  than 
which  no  process  is  more  hopelessly  expensive.  And 
now  he  was  inextricably  in  debt. 

Ill 

Pippa  came  up  from  Giardini,  in  the  blazing  noon, 
unembarrassed  by  the  sun's  stare,  and  unvexed  by  the 
the  fury  of  his  caresses.  She  neither  loitered  nor 
hurried,  her  limbs  moving,  as  it  seemed,  of  them- 


1 6  THE  TIDEWAY 

selves,  without  her  taking  any  thought  of  them. 
And  she  held  herself  finely  erect,  as  though  a  water- 
vessel  were  balanced  on  her  head,  as  indeed  it  often 
was.  The  road  winds  north  and  south,  along  the 
face  of  the  steep,  but,  whichever  way  she  faced, 
there  was  always  one  of  the  loveliest  views  In  the 
world  before  her.  But  she  noticed  it  all  as  little  as 
Tito. 

Presently,  however,  she  came  close  to  someone 
whose  trade  it  was  to  notice  such  things,  one  of  the 
artists  who  abound  here,  to  whose  presence  every- 
one had  long  grown  accustomed.  They  had  come 
long  before  the  tourists,  and  now,  before  the  hor- 
rible tidal  wave  of  tourists,  they  were  beginning  to 
recede.  This  one  was  a  Sicilian,  like  Pippa  herself, 
but  come  hither  from  a  Roman  studio,  up  ninety- 
three  steps,  in  the  Capo  le  Case,  not  far  from  where 
it  runs  sideways  into  the  Via  Sistina. 

He  sat  in  the  bend  of  the  road  that  jutted  out  a 
little,  as  on  a  sort  of  rock  bracket,  and  had  a  view 
of  Etna  that  was  incomparable.  Scores  of  people 
passed  up  and  down  every  day,  but  he  had  been  the 
only  one  to  discover  just  that  particular  view,  and 
he  was  proud  of  it.  A  dozen  paces  up  or  down, 
and  the  picture  was  quite  different. 

"Buon  giorno,  signorina!" 

Pippa  had  slowed  down  perceptibly  from  the  turn 
of  the  road  whence  she  caught  sight  of  him.  He 
had  seen  her  long  before  as  she  came  up  the  twist- 
ing road — she  was  close  to  hinj  now  and  almost 
stood  still. 

"Giorno!'' 

She  glanced  at  his  picture;  it  would  not  have  in- 
terested her,  but  that  she  knew  it  would  be  bought 
by  someone.  Anything  that  brought  money  was, 
naturally,  important.  Signor  Enrico  Longo  quite 
understood  her  point  of  view. 


THE  SACRISTANS  17 

"I  shall  put  it  in  the  Esposizione  dei  Belli  Arti,'* 
he  said,  "and  sell  it  for  four  hundred  lire." 

Pippa  made  a  polite  little  noise,  expressive  of  not 
too  much  surprise,  absolute  belief  and  appropriate 
congratulation.  But  she  did  not  really  suppose  he 
would  get  so  much.  She  had  a  sort  of  scale  of  ex- 
aggerations in  her  mind,  and  assessed  the  selling 
value  of  the  picture  at  about  two  hundred  and  fifty, 
which  was,  alas !  about  the  real  figure. 

Signor  Enrico  took  a  fairly  long  look  at  her,  and 
then  looked  back  at  his  view.  He  quite  felt  that  it 
was  his,  and  liked  it  especially  for  that  reason.  But 
he  liked  the  picture  on  the  canvas  best.  He  only 
cared  for  the  actual  view  as  it  was  capable  of  becom- 
ing a  picture.  His  appreciation  of  the  magnificence 
of  beauty  in  mountain  and  sea  and  sky,  and  Pippa's 
and  Tito's  lack  of  it,  were  not  really  very  wide  apart. 
To  be  alive  to  such  beauties  was  his  trade,  and  it  was 
not  theirs,  that  was  all. 

They  were  all  three  Sicilians,  and  all  three  mate- 
rialists. 

Pippa  looked  at  Signor  Enrico.  He  was  very 
handsome,  too,  for  the  present,  and  his  eyes  would 
always  be  divine.  But  no  other  feature  was  perfect, 
as  every  feature  in  Tito  was.  The  artist  was  thin, 
and  his  nose,  owing  to  his  thinness,  appeared  too 
long;  so  did  his  neck.  But  he  was  a  gentleman,  and 
Pippa  balanced  it  all  accurately.  And  she  was  quite 
right  in  counting  Longo  a  gentleman,  though  as  a 
matter  of  fact  his  father  was  only  a  small  innkeeper 
at  Noto.  They  had  known  each  other  some  weeks, 
and  Pippa  was  certain  that  Signor  Enrico  admired 
her,  though,  oddly  enough,  he  had  never  made  love 
to  her.  Had  he  attempted  to  do  so,  she  would  have 
been  extremely  capable  of  taking  care  of  herself. 

He  was  looking  at  his  canvas  with  a  quiet  satis- 
faction that  was  entirely  unlike  vanity.     Except  of 


1 8  THE  TIDEWAY 

a  certain  walking  stick  he  had,  he  was  not  in  the 
least  vain  of  anything.  It  had  a  watch  and  a  musi- 
cal box  in  the  top,  and  must  have  been  extremely  ex- 
pensive; an  American  who  had  bought  one  of  his 
pictures  had  given  it  to  him.  Yet  his  picture  was 
really  beautiful,  and  he  was  serenely  conscious  of 
his  complete  achievement.  It  was  exactly  what  He 
had  intended  it  to  be. 

"Signorina!" 

Pippa  attended. 

"I  would  like  to  paint  your  portrait." 

She  laughed.  "Why?"  she  asked,  with  more 
coquetry  than  was  habitual  to  her. 

"Because  it  would  be  a  beautiful  picture,  and  I 
should  sell  it  instantly." 

"For  how  much?" 

"For  six  hundred  francs,"  he  replied  with  undis- 
guised flattery. 

And  Pippa  was  flattered.  "Six  hundred  francs !" 
Say  he  even  got  half  of  it.  For  one's  portrait  to 
fetch  three  hundred  francs  and  perhaps  go  to  Rome 
and  be  seen  by  all  the  world  in  the  Esposizionef 

"If  there  is  an  opportunity,"  she  observed,  with  a 
doubtfulness  that  was  not  intended  to  discourage; 
merely  to  enhance  the  concession. 

IV 

It  was  just  then  Tito  came  round  the  corner  and 
found  them.  He  had  grown  tired  of  waiting,  and 
had  found  that  the  bank  whereon  he  lay  was  over- 
stocked with  big  blank  ants,  like  minute  dumb-bells. 
He  was  not  at  all  pleased  at  finding  Pippa  talking 
to  Signor  Longo,  so  smiled  broadly,  and  they  both, 
being  compatriots  of  his,  understood  perfectly. 

"The  signorina,"  observed  the  artist,  "has  prom- 
ised to  let  me  paint  her  portrait." 


THE  SACRISTANS  19 

The  noon-day  Ave  Maria  was  just  ringing  from 
the  convent  above  them,  and  Longo  began  to  put  his 
things  together;  it  was  time  to  go  up  to  the  inn  for 
dinner. 

Tito  remarked:  "What  an  honor!"  without  speci- 
fying to  whom. 

"Why  should  not  I  have  your  portrait,  too? 
Will  you  also  be  painted?"  asked  the  painter. 

"Why?"  inquired  Tito,  just  as  Pippa  had  done, 
but  with  less  coquetry. 

He  was  really  uncertain  why  Longo  should  wish 
to  paint  him;  and,  being  uncertain,  inclined  to  be 
suspicious.  Perhaps  the  artist  would  manage  that 
the  portrait  should  be  ugly,  and  at  the  same  time 
very  like  him.  Tito  did  not  like  that  idea  and  could 
not  see  where  it  might  lead  to. 

"Oh,"  said  Longo  quietly,  "I  have  always  wished 
to  paint  you.  You  are  the  handsomest  man  I  have 
ever  seen." 

Tito  was  taken  aback.  It  was  not  that  his  mod- 
esty was  disconcerted;  he  was  wholly  unassailed  by 
any.  But  he  was  a  very  primary  person,  sure  to  be 
diconcerted  at  first  by  the  unusual.  And  the  direct, 
obviously  sincere,  praise  of  his  beauty  expressed  by 
the  artist  was  a  first  experience.  To  compliments 
from  other  artists  he  was  well  inured;  but  they  had 
always  been  deftly  insinuated,  only  half  expressed, 
and  yet  had  always  conveyed  a  note  of  exaggeration. 
He  knew  nothing  yet  of  this  Northern  directness. 

As  for  Longo,  he  was  not  at  all  ignorant  of  the 
effect  of  his  speech;  he  quite  understood  it.  He, 
too,  was  Southern,  and  used  to  the  stale  compliment 
of  convention;  but  he  had  been  startled  once  by  re- 
ceiving from  an  Englishman  a  tribute  of  which  his 
own  to  Tito  had  been  the  paraphrase.  He  had  been 
at  once  so  conscious  of  the  effect,  that  he  had  re- 
solved,  when   occasion   offered,   to   try   the    simple 


20  THE  TIDEWAY 

weapon  himself.  In  his  way  Longo  was  very 
clever;  and  he  made  some  use  out  of  everybody. 

"I  go  to  school  to  everyone,"  he  said,  "and  they 
all  teach  me  something.  Even  the  very  stupid  ones 
teach  me  not  to  be  stupid."  But  this  avowal  was  to 
himself;  he  had  no  other  confidant. 

"Will  you  paint  us  together?  Pippa  and  me  to- 
gether— you  mean  that?"  demanded  Tito. 

"If  the  signorina  prefers  it  thus." 

But  the  signorina  was  very  far  from  preferring  it; 
that  she  and  Tito  should  be  painted  together  would, 
she  thought,  be  equivalent  to  the  most  public  an- 
nouncement of  their  betrothal. 

They  all  three  came  up  the  steep  road  together, 
Pippa  talking  very  little.  Indeed,  the  Signor  En- 
rico bore  the  weight  of  the  conversation.  Tito  saw 
no  use  in  talking  to  the  girl  with  another  man  there. 
And  he  did  not  particularly  want  to  talk  to  Longo. 
All  the  same,  he  did  talk  a  little,  otherwise  he  felt 
he  should  think  too  much,  and  he  did  not  want  the 
artist  to  guess  what  he  was  thinking  about. 

At  his  dinner,  however,  he  gave  way  to  it,  think- 
ing with  a  good  deal  of  compressing  and  intensity. 
For  Tito  was  capable  of  dogged  effort  and  concen- 
tration of  purpose.  And,  especially  he  was  con- 
scious that  he  must  make  haste.  He  had  felt  that  al- 
ready, before  finding  Pippa  and  Signor  Longo  to- 
gether. But  now  he  realized  that  it  was,  more  than 
ever,  necessary  to  be  quick. 

Less  than  two  months  ago  he  had  been  certain 
that  Pippa  was  ready  to  marry  him!  so  certain  that 
there  had  seemed  to  him  no  instant  necessity  to  ask 
her.  And,  on  the  other  hand,  he  had  not  then  at  all 
made  up  his  mind  that  Maso  had  any  money  worth 
considering  to  leave  her.  He  knew  that  some 
people  declared  the  old  man  had  saved  a  fortune; 
but,  then,  they  were  sure  to  say  that  of  an  old  man 


THE  SACRISTANS  21 

who  was  notoriously  a  miser;  and  until  to-day  Tito 
had  murh  doubted  the  report.  Pippa  was  so  beauti- 
ful that  he  could  not  bear  to  think  of  her  marrying 
any  other  man;  but  he  wanted  money  so  badly!  If 
she  had  nothing  but  her  beauty  could  he  afford  it? 

Like  all  Southerners,  Tito  was  practical.  He 
had  a  keen  appreciation  of  luxuries,  and  a  whole- 
hearted inclination  for  pleasures  and  indulgences; 
but  he  was  very  conscious  that  there  were  undoubted 
pleasures  and  indulgences  beyond  his  means.  Now 
that  it  had  come  to  his  knowledge,  through  Lucia's 
accident,  that  Maso  had  plenty  to  leave  his  grand- 
daughter, to  marry  her  appeared  to  Tito  no  longer 
an  extravagance,  but  a  duty.  But  he  felt  no  longer 
so  sure  of  her.  If  she  also  were  aware  of  her  pros- 
pects, it  is  natural  she  should  rate  herself  highly. 
And  it  suddenly  seemed  certain  to  Tito  that  she  had 
been  less  favorable  to  him  since  the  artist  had  turned 
up. 


For  more  than  four-score  years  Maso  had  lived 
and  never  had  been  ill.  That  he  should  be  ill  now, 
therefore,  made  him  angry.  He  could  not  under- 
stand it.  He  remembered  a  good  many  people  dy- 
ing, and  had  generally  attended  their  funerals,  pro- 
fessionally walking  beside  the  hearse  in  an  aston- 
ishingly black  suit,  and  carrying  a  big  torch  of  dirty 
brown  wax,  to  the  Campo  Santo  on  the  spur  of  the 
hill  just  outside  the  Giardini  gate,  below  the  Cappu- 
cini.  All  that  had  appeared  to  him  very  natural. 
It  had  put  four  or  five,  sometimes  ten  francs  in  his 
pocket,  and  had  always  seemed  to  him  a  very  sen- 
sible arrangement  of  Providence'.'  But  he  did  not 
at  all  see  why  he  should  be  ill  himself,  as  it  had 
never  happened  before.     And  he  had  a  disagree- 


22  THE  TIDEWAY 

able  conviction  that  he  should  die;  and  that  would 
upset  all  his  habits. 

Maso  had  never  been  anywhere  else;  not  even  to 
Messina  or  Catania  or  Acireale.  He  had  never 
wanted  to  visit  strange  places.  They  were  always, 
he  understood,  exceedingly  expensive.  About  fif- 
teen years  ago,  too,  there  had  been  a  landslip,  and 
part  of  the  Campo  Santo  had  gone  violently  down  a 
steep  place  into  the  sea ;  that  was  just  after  the  rainy 
spring  and  the  earthquake  of  1889.  And  now  there 
had  been  another  earthquake  and  the  spring  had 
been  intolerably  rainy.  He  could  not  bear  the  idea 
of  being  in  the  Campo  Santo  if  a  landslip  were  to 
send  half  of  it  jumping  down  the  hillside  to  Capo 
Sant'  Andrea  again.  Yet  he  felt  sure  he  must  be 
going  to  die.  Otherwise  why  should  he  be  ill?  He 
felt  confident  that  he  was  not  a  person  to  be  ill  just 
for  nothing.  All  the  same  he  went  on  as  if  nothing 
were  going  to  happen.  He  continued  doing  his 
work  in  the  church  exactly  as  usual;  though  one  or 
two  of  the  priests  noticed  he  was  ill,  and  advised 
him  to  take  a  holiday.  ( 

"When  their  illustrious  Reverences  give  me  a 
pension!"  he  retorted,  enjoying  his  own  sarcasm 
sourly. 

And  Tito  offered  to  do  his  work  for  him;  but  he 
only  said  sharply,  "That  you  may  get  promoted  to 
my  place  once  you  have  pushed  your  toe  into  it!" 

Tito  made  a  face  which  the  old  man  saw  and 
chuckled  over;  it  was  pleasant  to  pretend  that  it 
would  have  been  promotion  for  the  smart  young 
sacristan  of  the  Pieta  to  be  translated  to  Santa  Ven- 
era.  So  he  kept  on  in  the  church;  and  kept  on  at 
his  cobbling  in  the  dirty  front  room,  with  its  open 
arch,  unglazed  level  with  the  street.  But  his  face 
grew  more  ghastly  every  day,  so  that,  had  he  closed 
his  eyes  and  leaned  back  against  the  wall,  anyone 


THE  SACRISTANS  23 

would  have  said  he  was  dead  already;  and  his 
temples  stuck  out  nearly  as  fleshless  as  a  skeleton's. 
Nevertheless,  he  went  on  smacking  the  sole  of  the 
shoes  with  his  wooden  mallet,  and  sucking  the  bitter 
wax  threads  as,  he  had  told  Tito,  was  his  custom. 

Of  Tito  he  thought  almost  constantly.  Of  his 
wife  scarcely  at  all,  and  of  Pippa  not  much,  except 
in  relation  to  Tito.  Maso  had  never  been  romantic, 
and  sixty  years  of  wedded  life  had  thrown  no  halo 
round  Lucia's  squalid  old  head.  Her  miserliness 
was  the  only  endearing  quality  she  retained  for  him. 
That  she  was  dirty  he  would  not  have  noticed,  nor 
did  he  particularly  mind  her  being  ugly,  as  she  had 
been  for  forty  years  and  longer;  but  her  deafness 
was  inconvenient  and  uncalled  for.  Also  he  was 
exasperated  with  her  for  having  smashed  the  jar 
in  which  he  had  hidden  his  beloved  savings.  As  he 
sat  cobbling  he  never  thought  of  her,  except  with  an 
occasional  brief  movement  of  jealous  irritation  at 
her  surviving  him.  Nor,  as  has  been  said,  was  he 
much  occupied  about  Pippa.  He  had  never,  after 
all,  cared  a  great  deal  for  the  girl;  and  his  only  real 
interest  in  her  had  begun  comparatively  lately,  when 
he  had  perceived  that  the  idea  of  marrying  her  had 
come  to  Tito.  For  Maso  adored  Tito.  In  all  his 
long  dull  life  Maso  had  never  cared  for  anyone  else 
except  Peppino,  the  girl's  father,  who  had  been  born 
to  him  and  Lucia  after  fifteen  years  of  marriage. 
Peppino  had  been  sickly,  and  had  only  plucked  up 
strength  to  marry  when  he  was  nearly  thirty.  That 
was  how  Pippa  came  to  be  so  young.  Long  before 
she  could  remember,  her  father  had  died;  whereupon 
Maso  had  devoted  himself  to  saving  for  the  sake  of 
the  money  itself,  which  he  had  at  first  begun  to 
scrape  together  for  Peppino. 

It  was  all  very  simple  and  squalid.  What  was 
not  simple,  was  the  adoration  the  old  man  had  grad- 


24  THE  TIDEWAY 

ually  conceived  for  the  young  rival  sacristan.  To 
himself,  Maso  never  acknowledged  it,  and  could  not 
in  the  least  understand  it.  Perhaps  no  one  could. 
To  do  him  that  much  justice,  Tito  never  suspected 
it,  though  it  is  not  likely  that,  if  he  had,  it  would 
have  made  any  difference  to  his  needy  selfishness. 
Maso  always  snubbed  him,  and  belittled  him  as  well 
to  his  face  as  behind  his  back.  The  very  things  for 
which  the  old  man  secretly  admired  him,  he  openly 
derided  and  scoffed  at :  Tito's  fine  clothes  and  smart 
ways,  his  schooling,  and  power  of  writing  as  well  as 
speaking  Italian,  his  conceited  manners — alas!  his 
lax  morality,  even  his  selfishness  and  self-indulgence. 
Maso  sneered  less  at  his  scheming  and  unscrupulous- 
ness,  but  those  also  he  admired  slavishly;  and  the 
only  person  in  the  world  who  suspected  it  was  Don 
Cenzo,  the  notary.  For  Don  Cenzo  was  a  wise  old 
man  and  very  silent,  and  he  had  made  Maso's  will 
for  him  and  understood  it. 


VI 

The  day  before  Maso  died,  a  thing  happened 
which  might  have  been  of  no  ultimate  importance 
had  not  Signor  Enrico  Longo,  the  artist,  chanced 
to  see  it.  He  was  standing  by  the  wide  arch-door 
of  Maso's  workshop,  and  undetected  by  the  old  man 
had  been  rapidly  sketching  him;  his  appearance  had 
become  so  extraordinary  that  Longo  thought  it 
worth  making  into  a  rough  study  that  might  be  use- 
ful. It  had  not  taken  long  and  he  had  finished  and 
put  the  bit  of  paper  away,  when  Tito  came  saunter- 
ing across  the  Naumachia,  and  presently  leaned 
against  the  opposite  doorpost.  His  nonchalance 
was  so  unstudied  that  it  attracted  Longo's  attention, 
and  made  him  discern  under  it  a  further  excitement. 
Tito  looked  more  dissipated  than  usual,  which  was 


THE  SACRISTANS  25 

one  of  fate's  unfairnesses,  for  he  had  been  lately 
much  steadier.  He  was  as  handsome  as  ever,  but 
his  eyes  seemed  almost  too  big  and  brilliant,  and 
there  were  deep  shades  of  black  under  them,  almost 
like  bruises. 

"He  won't  call  the  doctor,"  observed  Longo,  nod- 
ding towards  Maso.  "I've  been  telling  him  that 
I  met  Doctor  Manchini  just  now,  down  the  hill  there 
by  Castello  a  Mare;  he  had  been  to  see  someone  at 
the  convent,  and  I  nearly  told  him  he  should  come  up 
here  to  see  Maso." 

Maso  growled.  He  did  not  believe  in  doctors, 
and  knew  they  were  expensive.  Tito  was  unable  to 
repress  entirely  a  certain  relief  at  his  obstinacy.  It 
was  not  that,  however,  which  Longo  particularly 
noticed,  but  something  that  took  place  immediately 
afterwards. 

Don  Taddeo,  the  carpenter,  who  was  also  the  un- 
dertaker, had  a  goat,  and  this  animal  came  along  the 
Naumachia  tossing  her  head  conceitedly.  Now 
goats,  especially  the  Sicilian  goats,  have  many  salient 
characteristics,  but  diffidence  is  never  one  of  them. 
An  inquisitive  appetite  is;  and  as  she  came  close  to 
Maso's  wooden  tray  on  short  legs,  that  stood  out- 
side on  the  pavement  close  to  his  elbow,  and  at  the 
same  level,  she  thrust  her  nose  into  it  in  search  of 
anything  obviously  edible  that  might  be  in  it.  A 
bundle  of  wax  threads,  cut  into  rather  uneven 
lengths,  seemed  to  satisfy  every  requirement,  and 
she  seized  them  hastily  in  her  very  prehensile  mouth 
and  made  hurriedly  off  with  all  the  exhilaration  of 
conscious  transgression.  At  that  particular  moment 
Signor  Longo's  eyes  happened  to  be  on  Tito's  face. 
"She  has  taken  them,  Maso!"  he  called  out. 
"Your  bunch  of  wax  threads." 

The  old  man  looked  after  her  indifferently. 
With  uplifted  head  she  had  paused,  fifty  yards  away, 
to  devour  them  hastily. 


26  THE  TIDEWAY 

"I  chew  them,  signor,"  he  observed.  "It  is  my 
custom  as  I  told  you,  Tito.  They  taste  bitter,  like 
the  wet  end  of  a  cigar;  and  they  cost  cheaper." 

Presently  Longo  went  away.  But  he  lodged  with 
Don  Taddeo,  and  that  evening  he  was  informed  of 
the  goat's  demise,  which  was  the  more  trying  to 
Taddeo  that  her  condition  was  at  the  time  most  in- 
teresting. Half  an  hour  later  Maso  himself  heard 
of  it.  Pippa  brought  back  the  news,  for  she  had 
been  to  see  Assunta,  Don  Taddeo's  wife,  who  had 
always  been  rather  a  friend  of  hers,  and  more 
markedly  so  during  the  last  few  weeks.  Assunta 
was  a  good-natured  woman  and  liked  Signor  Longo, 
whereas  she  detested  Tito,  who  gave  himself  airs — 
as  if  a  sacristan  were  much  higher  in  ecclesiastical 
precedence  than  an  undertaker — which  Don  Tad- 
deo's wife  resented  vigorously,  seeing  that  her  hus- 
band had  a  couple  of  fields  and  the  two  black  horses 
that  drew  most  people  on  their  last  drive  out  of 
Santa  Venera. 

"They  are  tiresome  things,"  observed  Pippa,  sym- 
pathetically, "and  who  knows  what  will  poison  them. 
Don  Marsom,  the  farmacista,  had  a  goat  that  ate 
a  lot  of  yellow  spurge  and  was  no  worse,  only  his 
bambino  that  drank  the  milk  died.  Whereas  your 
goat  eats  some  wax  threads  (that  belonged,  saying 
your  honor,  to  my  grandfather,  for  his  cobbling) 
and  she  dies.     Eccol" 

She  thought  it  well  to  remind  them  that  the  origi- 
nal grievance  had  been  Maso's.  From  Don  Tad- 
deo's Signor  Enrico  walked  home  with  her;  the  first 
time  she  had  definitely  accepted  his  escort,  though 
often  enough  they  had  met  in  the  road  and  talked, 
or  walked  a  bit  of  the  way  together.  In  the  Corso 
they  met  Tito,  and  Pippa  told  him  Don  Taddeo's 
goat  was  dead. 

"Don  Taddeo,  the  undertaker,  has  he  got  a 
goat?" 


THE  SACRISTANS  27 

His  ignorance  seemed  to  Longo  rather  elaborate. 

"No,"  he  said,  "he  has  not;  for  it  is  dead,  as 
Pippa  is  telling  you." 

"But  he  had  one;  a  blue  one!"  said  the  girl,  who 
was  certain  Tito  knew  very  well  that  the  under- 
taker had  a  goat. 

"It  ate  a  bunch  of  Nonno's  wax  threads  this  morn- 
ing," she  explained  in  a  tone  of  complaint,  as  though 
the  result  were  vaguely  discreditable  to  the  family, 
"and  soon  after  the  Ave  Maria  it  died." 

"Altro!     It  was  that  goat?     I  saw  it,"  said  Tito. 

They  walked  on,  and  Tito  continued  his  way  in 
the  opposite  direction.  They  were  both  thinking 
about  his  pretending  not  to  know  that  Don  Taddeo 
had  a  goat.  So  when  they  spoke  it  was  of  another 
matter. 

"Why  should  it  die?"  complained  Pippa,  adher- 
ing to  her  grievance.    "A  few  wax  threads !" 

"And  your  grandfather  has  always  chewed  them, 
as  he  told  Tito."  Signor  Enrico's  tone  was  inno- 
cence itself,  and  his  face  was  as  expressionless  as  he 
could  make  it.  All  the  same,  Pippa  immediately 
knew  what  he  was  thinking  of. 

"Until  now,"  she  observed,  "they  never  did  him 
harm.     He  has  chewed  them  all  his  life." 

Longo  looked  more  and  more  innocent. 

"All  his  life,  yes,"  he  agreed,  "they  did  him  no 
mischief — until  now." 

"And  now,"  the  girl  asked,  "What  do  you  think? 
He  is  very  ill?" 

"He  will  die  very  soon,"  the  artist  declared 
plainly. 


VII 

Maso  was  dead — yes,  and  buried,  too;  for  in  the 
hot  south  the  great  onward  journey  of  one's  soul 


2  8  THE  TIDEWAY 

is  followed  very  quickly  by  the  shorter  last  journey 
of  one's  body.  Close  by  the  cracked  wall,  on  the 
side  nearest  the  precipitous  hill  at  whose  foot  lies 
Capo  Sant'  Andrea  and  the  sea,  lies  his  ugly  new 
grave;  in  an  inevitable  position  for  the  next  landslip. 
For  Maso  had  said  nothing,  and  his  repulsions  on 
the  subject  were  unconjectured. 

Another  old  sacristan,  belonging  to  the  Cappucini, 
had  borrowed  his  threadbare  and  greasy  black  suit 
to  walk  by  his  hearse,  partly  out  of  respect  for  the 
deceased,  and  partly  to  gain  two  francs  fifty.  Tito, 
of  course,  attended  also  in  his  newer  black  suit,  the 
same  he  waited  In  at  the  restaurant  of  the  Teatro 
Elena.  And  naturally  Don  Taddeo  was  there,  for 
there  Is  only  one  undertaker  In  Santa  Venera,  talk- 
ing, as  he  walked  to  his  neighbor,  the  chemist, 
Don  Marco;  they  spoke  a  little  of  old  Maso,  but 
more  of  Don  Taddeo's  goat,  as  was  natural.  And 
under  the  big  hibiscus  tree  in  the  corner  of  the 
Campo  Santo  stood  Signor  Longo,  the  artist,  sketch- 
ing the  funeral,  which  he  recognized  as  pictorial. 
His  own  country  was  not  without  honor  to  this 
prophet;  and  though  a  Sicilian,  he  was  keenly  alive 
to  the  scenic  splendors  of  Sicily.  That  he  loved  Its 
marvelous  beauties  I  am  not  prepared  to  say,  but  he 
thoroughly  recognized  their  utility  for  reproductive 
purposes.  Up  In  the  dim  old  house  on  the  Nauma- 
chla,  PIppa  and  old  Lucia  were  receiving  visits  of 
condolence,  and  their  visitors  were  bellowing  well- 
aired  fragments  of  philosophy  Into  the  widow's  deaf 
ears. 

The  dead  man's  bench  and  tray  and  stool  looked 
pathetic  now  their  master  of  more  than  threescore 
years  had  gone  from  them;  but  It  was  not  a  pathos 
to  appeal  to  PIppa  nor  the  visitors.  When  the 
latter  had  all  gone,  the  old  woman  began  to  move 
about  aimlessly.     She  was  quite  lost  without  Maso. 


THE  SACRISTANS  29 

For  sixty  years  she  had  been  used  to  his  ill-tempers 
and  scoldings,  and  their  cessation  for  ever  left  her 
helpless.  She  had  never  had  anything  to  do  but  to 
defend  herself  against  them,  and  life  had  become 
suddenly  silent. 

She  was  as  unromantic  as  Maso  himself  had  been; 
but  he  had  been  her  husband,  a  faithful  one,  if 
crabbed  and  untender;  and  her  life  had  never  been 
anything  but  the  less  significant  half  of  his.  You 
might  as  well  try  to  cut  a  raw  egg  in  halves  as  divide 
her  existence  from  that  of  her  lifelong  companion. 
She  could  not  have  defined  or  explained  her  grief; 
indeed,  she  had  never  tried  to  define  or  explain  any- 
thing in  her  life.  Perhaps  it  was  not  grief  in  the 
common  sense  at  all.  But  it  would  suffice  to  kill 
her.  The  habit  of  living,  as  it  were,  half  a  life,  had 
so  grown  into  her  that  it  would  not  be  possible  for 
her  to  continue  living  a  separate,  independent  life 
all  to  herself. 

Don  Cenzo,  the  notary,  who  was  elderly  and  wise, 
perceived  this  when  he  came  in,  half  an  hour  after 
the  other  visitors  had  gone  away.  He  did  not  tell 
her  about  Maso's  will;  it  seemed  to  him  useless  to 
trouble  her.  But  he  told  Pippa.  The  old  man  had 
left  everything  to  the  man  who  should  marry  Pippa. 
He  had  always  taken  it  for  granted  that  he  should 
himself  survive  Lucia.  But  no  doubt,  said  Don 
Cenzo,  Pippa  and  her  husband  would  look  after  the 
old  woman. 

"But  I  have  no  husband!"  said  the  girl,  with  a 
little  laugh. 

"Not  to-day,"  replied  the  notary,  "but  that  will 
be  an  affair  of  to-morrow." 

He  bowed  politely.  And  he  guessed  already  that 
Pippa  would  not  marry  Tito,  as  her  grandfather  had 
intended.  This  slightly  shocked  him,  for  he  was  a 
lawyer,  and  had  a  feeling  that  the  wishes  of  a  testa- 


30  THE  TIDEWAY 

tor  should  be  complied  with.  But  when  testators 
express  their  intentions  thus  vaguely,  they  have  but 
themselves  to  thank  if  they  are  defeated.  Being  a 
lawyer,  he  felt  that  also.  And  Don  Cenzo,  like 
Assunta,  disliked  Tito. 

As  for  Pippa,  she  had  made  up  her  mind  that  no 
power  on  earth  would  now  make  her  marry  the 
handsome  young  sacristan;  not  even  the  undeniable 
power  of  his  beauty.  For  she  had  also  made  up 
her  mind  about  something  she  had  suddenly  read  in 
Signor  Enrico's  mind,  a  suspicion  of  his  that, 
abruptly,  had  been  born  a  robust  certainty  in  her 
own.  That  Signor  Longo  wanted  to  marry  her,  she 
had  also  become  certain. 

At  that  moment,  though  she  did  not  know  it,  the 
two  men  were  together.  Tito  had  taken  off  his 
evening  suit,  and  put  on  his  ordinary  clothes,  in 
which  he  looked  much  better.  He  was  now  in  the 
sacristy  of  the  Pieta,  getting  out  the  next  day's  vest- 
ments. To  his  displeasure  and  surprise  the  man  he 
least  desired  to  see  of  all  men  in  the  world  had,  un- 
invited, joined  him  there. 

The  front  doors  of  the  church  opening  on  the 
Naumachia  were  locked,  and  Signor  Enrico  knew  it. 
He,  therefore,  knocked  at  the  sacristy  door,  and, 
without  waiting  for  any  reply,  opened  it  quickly  and 
went  in.  For  a  moment  the  two  men  looked  at  each 
other  without  speaking.  Tito  had  not  expected  this 
visit;  and  his  surprise  gave  the  other  that  much 
initial  advantage.  On  that  Longo  counted;  and  by 
a  further  advantage  of  surprise  he  intended  to  pro- 
ceed. Taking  from  his  pockets  a  small  canvas  bag 
he  put  it  down,  close  to  Tito,  on  the  vesting  table 
of  antique  polished  mahogany,  nearly  black,  but 
without  saying  anything. 

"What  is  this?"  asked  the  sacristan. 


THE  SACRISTANS  31 

"Money,"  retorted  the  artist  promptly.  "Open 
and  count  it." 

Almost  mechanically  Tito  began  to  do  so. 

"But  why  should  I?"  he  inquired  presently,  paus- 
ing with  the  notes  in  his  hand. 

"Because  it  concerns  you." 

Tito  went  on  counting;  the  artist  watching  him, 
and  chiefly  occupied  with  the  thought  of  the  man's 
astonishing  beauty.  Just  as  he  by  no  means  desired 
to  live  in  the  houses  that  were  best  to  paint,  so  was 
he  quite  free  to  recognize  the  beauty  of  this  man 
who  was  altogether  hateful.  Tito  did  not  count  the 
money  to  an  end;  he  could  tell  exactly  how  much  it 
was  without  that.  It  was,  to  his  standards,  a  good 
deal. 

"How  does  it  concern  me,  signor?"  he  asked,  as 
though  pausing,  but  feebly. 

"It  is  yours." 

"Mine?     How;  what  for?" 

"To  take  you  to  Argentina." 

Tito  did  not  drop  the  money;  but  he  could  scarcely 
hold  it  without  betraying  that  his  hand  trembled. 
He  let  it  rest  on  the  time-smoothed  wood.  He 
wanted  to  look  full  into  Longo's  face,  but  for  the 
life  of  him  he  could  not  though  he  felt  the  other 
man's  eyes  fixed  on  his  own.  And  he  wanted  to  say 
something;  but  he  dared  not;  nothing  seemed  safe; 
he  had  no  role,  no  programme. 

Longo  had  thought  him  cleverer  and  more  coura- 
geous, too,  and  began  to  despise  him  more  and  more. 
This  gave  his  voice,  as  he  went  on,  a  confidence  and 
sense  of  power,  a  certainty,  that  the  wretched  Tito 
felt  intuitively,  and  that  materially  assisted  Signor 
Enrico's  success. 

"To  take  you  to  Argentina.  A  number  of  Cala- 
bresi  are  going  from  Reggio  this  evening;  they  are 
crossing  to  Messina  even  now.     In  the  Florio  boat, 


32  THE  TIDEWAY 

Ei?ipedocle,  they  will  start  this  evening  at  five 
o'clock.  On  Friday  morning  they  will  reach 
Naples,  and  re-ship;  that  same  afternoon  in  the 
Speranza  they  will  sail  for  Buenos  Ayres.  That  is 
how  you  will  go." 

Still  Tito  could  not  turn  his  full  face,  nor  lift 
his  eyes  nor  ask  "Why"  as  he  was  trying  to.  His 
tongue  clave  to  the  roof  of  his  mouth,  and  his 
mouth  itself  felt  dry.  His  desire  and  his  inability 
to  speak  was  exactly  like  what  is  experienced  In  a 
nightmare.  He  was  always  a  coward,  though  no 
one  had  known  it  till  now.  Perhaps  not  himself, 
even.  And  how  brave  would  he  need  to  have  been 
not  to  prove  a  coward  now,  with  a  conscience  like 
his!  He  had  two  additional  reasons  for  cowardice, 
that  his  tormentor,  who  had  guessed  so  much,  could 
not  guess — one  physical,  one  moral,  and  both  added 
themselves  to  all  the  rest  to  demoralize  him  utterly. 

There  was  something  the  matter  with  his  heart 
besides  its  blackness.  He  had  become  certain  of  it 
only  lately;  more  than  ever  certain  since  that  quick 
knock  had  come  just  now  on  the  door  opening  on  the 
steep  path.  It  was  not  that  his  heart  was  beating 
violently;  after  one  horrible  leap  into  his  throat  it 
had  ceased,  he  thought,  to  beat  at  all.  He  longed 
to  put  his  hand  upon  his  breast  and  feel,  but  with 
those  ruthless,  untiring  eyes  upon  him  he  could  not. 

The  moral  thing  that  weighed  him  down  and 
demoralized  him  was  worse.  But  of  that  presently, 
though  he  was  thinking  of  It  all  the  time ;  and  its 
effect  was  so  gatheringly  apparent  that  Longo  saw 
its  paralyzing  effect,  and  his  pitiless  voice  hardened, 
and  grew  more  masterful,  more  irresistible,  so  that 
the  listening  wretch  felt  all  spirit  of  resistance  ooz- 
ing hopelessly  out  of  him. 

"That  is  how  you  will  go,"  insisted  the  voice. 
"For  Santa  Venera  is  unhealthy  for  you;  as  it  was 


THE  SACRISTANS  33 

for  Maso,  as  it  was  for  Don  Taddeo's  goat,  .... 
and  there  are  other  unhealthy  places,  too;  Panta- 
laria  and  Ponza,  for  instance.  You  never  heard, 
perhaps,  how  unhealthy  Pantalaria  was  for  the  Em- 
press Messalina,  the  poisoner.   .   .   .   ." 

Tito  heard  no  more.  The  voice  faded  into  im- 
measurable distances,  and  when  he  came  to  himself 
again,  Tito  was  alone.  Then  he,  too,  went:  exivit  et 
non  erat;  he  went  out  and  it  was  night ;  like  his  pro- 
totype, the  other  traitor,  but  Tito's  night  was  not 
the  merciful  darkness  of  nature.  Down  the  hillside 
he  staggered,  in  the  blazing  noon  with  the  pitiless 
staring  of  the  July  sun  blinding  him;  but  with  no 
sun  of  hope,  no  light  of  any  saving  love  of  Gpd  or 
man  or  woman;  for  this  desire  for  Pippa  had  been 
no  more  than  the  mere  jealous  greed  of  possession; 
the  vulgar  avarice  of  beauty,  as  common  and  not 
much  nobler  than  the  vulgar  avarice  of  money. 

When  Pippa  told  poor  dying  Maso  how  Taddeo's 
goat  was  dead  that  had  eaten  the  wax  threads, 
Signor  Longo  was  still  there,  and  the  old  man's  eyes 
were  on  his  face.  And  into  the  growing  darkness 
of  those  eyes  that  looked  so  close  on  death,  grew  a 
wistful  light,  of  sadness  unspeakable,  but  nobler  than 
any  that  had  ever  gleamed  in  them.  For  a  time  no 
one  spoke.  Then  Maso  bade  the  women  begone, 
and  beckoned  Longo  to  stay  by  him.  No  sooner 
were  they  alone  than  the  wistful  look  translated 
itself  into  speech,  answering  the  suspicion  in  the 
young  man's  face. 

"I  did  it.     I  myself,"  he  said  eagerly.      "No  one 

knows No  one  must  know.     But  I  did  it. 

I  insured  my  life,  long  ago;  I  thought  it  could  be 
only  for  a  few  years.  But  I  lived  and  lived;  and 
the  money  was  all  going,  paying  the  money  of  the 
insurance.  I  could  not  bear  it  all  to  go.  So  I 
chewed  wax  threads,  and  they  are  velenosi,  poison- 


34  THE  TIDEWAY 

ous.  Now  I  die,  and  there  will  be  no  more  paying, 
but  a  big  money  from  the  insurance.  Don  Cenzo 
knows  what  it  is.  And  my  will.  He  made  it,  and  he 
knows  that,  too.  He  keeps  it  for  I  cannot  read. 
.  .  .  Thus  I  did  it;  thus,  I  myself." 
"Yes,  yes.  I  see,"  said  Longo;  knowing  well 
that  the  dying  man  lied  to  save  the  living;  then  he 
called  back  the  women  and  went  away,  determined 
now  that  he  was  certain  that  Tito  should  go,  too, 
go  far,  and  go  for  ever.  The  women  had  come 
back,  and  would  have  sat  up  all  night  with  the  old 
man  who  was  dying,  but  he  drove  them  fiercely  away 
to  bed.  All  night  he  sat  alone,  and  early  in  the 
morning  he  sent  for  Tito.  To  him,  too,  he  told  his 
wistful  lie,  but  never  looking  at  the  young  man«s 
face. 

That  was  the  second  thing  that  demoralized  him; 
'to  know  that  Maso  himself  knew  and  excused  him, 
knew  and  loved  him.  So  he  staggered  blindly  down 
the  hillside  in  the  utter  night  of  the  fierce  noon,  while 
the  weird  fichi  d'India  clutched  at  the  steep  as  it 
leapt  downwards  to  the  sea.  Hopeless,  hopeless ! 
Utterly  hopeless,  if  his  final  judgment  were  to  lie 
with  us,  with  sins  of  our  own  to  make  us  merciless 
to  the  different  sins  of  others.  But  Perfection  does 
not  delegate  the  function  of  judgment,  and  imper- 
fection is  not  to  be  judged  by  imperfection. 


THE  LADY  OF  THE  DUNESHORE 

I 

IF  one  hated  a  mountain,  or  an  iron-bound  coast, 
that  region  which  we  may  as  well  call  the  Dune 
Shore  would  have  been  the  very  place  to  inhabit. 
The  whole  province  contained  no  hill  of  a  greater 
elevation  than  six  hundred  feet  above  the  sea-level, 
and  for  even  such  a  hill  as  that  it  would  have  been 
necessary  to  go  far  inland.  The  sea-board  was  as 
flat  as  the  North  African  desert;  that  is  to  say,  not 
flat  at  all,  but  like  an  ocean  that  had  been  changed 
Into  sand  after  a  storm  that  had  past  and  left  behind 
it  a  long  low  ground-swell.  Nowhere  did  the  dunes 
attain  any  height,  but  everywhere  there  were  dunes; 
so  that,  unless  one  should  walk  along  the  very  beach 
itself,  one  would  continually  be  going  up  and  down 
low  hills.  Next  the  sea  the  dunes  were  of  sheer 
sand,  not  held  together  by  any  herbage,  and  of 
changing  contour;  for,  after  summer's  long  drought 
had  pulverized  the  sand,  the  gales  of  September 
blew  it  far  and  wide.  Later  on,  the  cold  rains  and 
cold  gales  alternating  caked  it,  and  It  became  hard 
enough,  and  not  bad  to  walk  upon.  Just  a  little 
further  Inland,  more  out  of  reach  of  the  salt  spray, 
though  not  wholly  out  of  reach,  a  miserable  sour 
grass  bound  the  sand,  and  held  it  from  shifting. 
Yet  further  inland  came  a  region  of  soggy  lean  pas- 
tures, and  hungry  reclaimed  land,  on  which  meagre 
crops  were  cultivated — mostly  by  mannish-looking 
women,  for  the  men  were  almost  all  fisherfolk,  or 
sailors,  or  boatbuilders  and  shipbuilders,  or,  in  the 
larger  of  the  small  towns,  engaged  in  some  other 

35 


36  THE  TIDE fV AY 

commerce  that  dealt  with  seafaring  matters.  There 
were  sailmakers,  and  ropemakers,  ships'  store- 
dealers,  even  here  and  there  a  ship's  instrument  sel- 
ler, and  a  foundry  where  anchors,  bolts,  iron  beams 
and  girders  and  cables  were  cast. 

In  all  the  province  there  was  no  large  town. 
Helsing,  the  capital  of  the  Duchy,  was  about  the 
largest,  and  its  population  was  under  sixty  thousand. 
It  was  not  exactly  on  the  sea,  but  not  far  up  the 
river-estuary,  and  one  of  its  suburbs  trailed  out  al- 
most on  to  the  dunes. 

It  was  not  a  bad  sort  of  a  town.  It  had  a  few 
decent  buildings — the  Ducal  Palace,  the  Court 
House,  the  Town  House,  the  Cathedral,  five  other 
churches,  and  the  Bishop's  Palace.  As  for  these, 
they  were  not  raw  or  new,  but  would  have  been 
older,  and  might  have  been  finer,  but  for  the  great 
fire  of  1630.  After  the  fire  everything  had  had 
to  be  rebuilt  at  once,  and  there  was  hardly  enough 
money  to  go  round.  So  the  Duke's  palace  was  not 
enormous,  and  was  very  plain,  though  not  exactly 
ugly.  The  Bishop's  residence  was  called  a  palace 
only  as  being  his  official  house ;  it  was  of  very  moder- 
ate size  and  of  modest  pretension  architecturally. 

There  was  also  a  theatre,  but  it  formed  part  of 
the  Ducal  Palace,  and  the  cathedral  balanced  it, 
forming  the  left  wing  of  that  face  of  the  palace  that 
fronted  on  the  Public  Gardens.  On  the  other  side 
of  those  gardens  was  the  Barrack,  and  the  Town 
House.  The  Court  House  formed  one  side  of  a 
sort  of  square  upon  the  quays.  The  prison  formed 
another,  and  opposite  was  the  Duke's  Admiralty 
Court.  Nearly  the  whole  aristocracy  of  the  duchy 
lived  at  Helsing — for  warmth  one  would  almost  say, 
for  the  lands  were  cold  and  wind-swept,  and  except 
for  occasional  "belts"  of  low  stone-pines  there  was 
no  timber. 


THE  LADY  OF  THE  DUNESHORE    37 

None  of  the  aristocracy  condescended  to  trade, 
but  many  had  shipping  interests,  and  that  gave  them 
a  further  reason  for  dwelling  at  Helsing;  not  but 
what  other  towns  had  many  the  same  importance; 
in  no  other  town,  however,  was  there  a  Court  and  a 
Court  Theatre — one  might  say  a  Court  Bishop.  The 
Bishop  of  Helsing  was  Court  Bishop,  and  he  was 
apt  to  be  a  cousin  of  the  reigning  Duke. 

It  was  a  f.airly  clean  town,  and  though  it  was  far 
from  suggesting  opulence,  neither  had  it  any  air  of 
being  poverty-stricken.  Its  burghers  were  solid, 
slow-moving  people,  who  grew  rich  deliberately,  and 
never  ran  risks  of  bankruptcy. 

The  Duke  was  by  far  the  richest  man  in  the  prov- 
ince, and  all  the  dukes  had  had  a  comfortable  habit 
of  marrying  princesses  with  adequate,  if  not  daz- 
zling, dowries. 

The  Bishop  was  the  Court-Bishop  of  Helsing, 
but  the  Duke  was  His  Serene  Highness  the  Duke  of 
Platland,  Count  of  the  Free  Trucairs,  and  Admiral 
of  the  Dune  Shore,  Prince  of  the  Empire. 

Neither  he  nor  the  society  that  adorned  his  court 
will,  however,  concern  us  much — as  yet  at  all  events ; 
for  strangers  were  not  warmly  welcomed  in  the 
ducal  circles  of  Helsing,  and  certainly  not  strangers 
who  came  without  certificates  of  their  fitness.  And 
it  is  with  a  stranger  we  have  to  do. 

When  Ida  Patersen  arrived  at  Helsing  she  might 
have  been  two  and  twenty,  to  judge  by  her  appear- 
ance, which  was  staid  and  widow-like,  and  perhaps 
her  deep,  ugly  mourning  made  her  look  older,  for 
in  reality  she  was  not  twenty  years  old. 

Her  arrival  was  of  no  public  consequence,  and 
the  public,  small  as  it  was,  was  not  immediately 
aware  of  it.  At  first — for  some  weeks — she  lived 
very  quietly  in  a  substantial  but  staid  and  decorous 
Inn,  the  Golden  Swan.     The  Order  of  the  Golden 


38  THE  TIDEWAY 

Swan  was  second  only  in  dignity  to  that  of  the  Black 
Ship — the  Duke's  armorial  had  for  its  principal 
quarters  sable  a  szvan,  or,  and  or  a  ship  in  full  sail, 
sable.  At  the  end  of  a  month  Madame  Petersen, 
as  she  called  herself,  bought  a  small  house,  in  that 
suburb  that  straggled  seaward  towards  the  dunes, 
and  began  to  live  there  as  quietly  as  she  had  lived  in 
the  hotel. 

The  price  asked  had  been  rather  high,  and  she 
had  agreed  to  it  (and  paid  it,  too)  without  demur. 
The  agent  had  recommended  a  dealer  in  furniture, 
and  to  him  she  had  gone,  and  furnished  her  abode 
out  of  what  he  had.  He  also  found  her  easy  to  deal 
with;  and,  not  being  a  dishonest  man,  and  perceiving 
that  what  he  asked  she  seemed  willing  to  give,  he 
proceeded  to  name  reasonable  if  profitable  prices. 
She  interested  him  as  being  a  lady  of  some  individ- 
uality of  taste;  for  he  had  in  his  store  not  only  new 
stock,  which  attracted  her  little,  but  all  sorts  of 
quaint  bits  of  furniture  brought  at  various  times 
from  overseas.  This  she  bought — hangings,  car- 
pets, even  tapestries,  inlaid  bureaus,  and  gilded 
mirrors  (often  tarnished,  but  of  good  design  and 
quality) ,  especially  anything  French,  Italian  or  Span- 
ish— nothing  northern. 

She  spent  freely  enough,  and  if  the  house  had  not 
been  so  small  the  furnishing  of  it  would  have  been 
very  costly. 

"She  has  an  excellent  taste,"  the  dealer  informed 
his  wife,  and  indeed  some  of  his  more  regular  cus- 
tomers, who  often  came  to  chat  and  to  look  as 
much  as  to  buy.  "And  she  takes  what  she  chooses 
without  haggling." 

"That,"  said  one  of  the  customers,  "must  be 
rather  dull.  Buying  a  thing  one  fancies  is  like  play- 
ing a  fish;  there's  little  sport  in  landing  him  at  the 
first  strike.     Where  does  she  come  from?" 


THE  LADY  OF  THE  DUNESHORE    39 

"That,  of  course,  I  didn't  ask  her." 

"Madame,"  his  wife  observed,  "is  not  a  lady 
one  would  easily  intrude  upon.     She  has  a  dignity." 

"Born,  do  you  suppose?"  inquired  the  customer, 
who  frequented  the  Court. 

"I  didn't  ask  her  that  either,"  said  the  dealer, 
drily. 

"She  has  a  pretty  face,"  declared  his  wife,  "when 
her  veil  is  up,  and  a  fine  face,  too,  and  her  hands 
are  the  hands  of  a  lady." 

"Oh,"  said  the  dealer,  "there  is  no  doubt  she  is 
a  lady." 

II 

Now  I  want  to  introduce  the  reader  to  Ida  Peter- 
sen; but  I  prefer  to  wait  till  a  few  months  after  she 
had  gone  to  live  in  her  small  house  near  the  dunes; 
for  her  mourning  had  gradually  become  less  por- 
tentous, gradually,  but  by  rather  swift  gradations. 
During  the  weeks  in  the  Golden  Swan  no  one  could 
have  doubted  her  being  a  widow.  Then  her  black 
became  less  ugly,  cumbrous  and  dismal;  and  little 
by  little,  while  still  remaining  black  it  came  to  lose 
the  character  of  mourning;  but  into  no  other  color 
did  it  ever  merge.  And  yet  she  had  loved  bright  if 
soft  hues,  and  of  black  she  had  been  used  to  express 
an  almost  vehement  abhorrence.  One  afternoon  in 
autumn  she  sat  by  her  fire  of  logs,  alone,  in  the 
quaint  and  pleasant  parlor  where  the  best  of  her 
gleanings  from  the  dealer's  were  gathered  together. 
The  wooden  walls  were  covered  with  ancient  tapes- 
tries, and  her  chairs  were  covered  with  fine  and  rare 
needlework,  made  by  French  fingers  dead  a  century 
and  a  half  ago. 

She  rose  from  her  deep  chair,  and  walked  to  the 
window  that  looked  seawards — the  sea  was  hidden 
behind  the  dunes.     A  very  graceful  figure,  tall  and 


40  THE  TIDEWAY 

slim,  but  not  lean  or  meagre ;  and  a  noble  head,  ex- 
quisitely set  on.  The  face  itself  noble  too,  and 
beautiful;  but  occasionally,  often  indeed,  though  not 
always,  marred  by  a  terrible  expression.  It  should 
be  remembered  that  it  was  a  very  young  face,  not  at 
all  that  of  a  woman  who  had  long  world-experience. 
There  were  no  lines  in  it,  and  its  color  was  not  dull 
or  pallid;  the  complexion,  indeed,  was  both  brilliant 
and  healthy.  It  was  a  face,  too,  not  made  for 
gloom,  but  obviously  for  gaiety  and  mirth;  express- 
ing in  general  a  happy  nature,  and  a  sweet  confi- 
dence, a  warm,  trustful  outlook  upon  life  and  her 
fellow-men.  And  yet — sometimes,  there  swept 
over  it,  like  a  dark  submerging  wave,  a  look  of  utter 
horror.  Such  an  expression  in  the  eyes  (so  lovely 
in  themselves,  and  so  apt  to  reflect  wholesome  and 
glad  thoughts)  could  be  explicable  in  one  who  had 
been  called  to  behold  an  abominable  crime,  some 
hideous  treachery,  some  heartless  cruelty,  but  to 
associate  with  the  girl  herself  any  idea  of  complicity 
in  the  crime  was  not  possible — unless  the  Devil,  quod 
absit,  should  have  power  to  impress  the  stamp  of 
innocence  on  a  mask  of  wickedness. 

"I  can  not  stay  in,"  she  said  to  herself,  not  in  Ger- 
man. "It  fills  my  book  to-day.  It  illustrates  every 
page.  It  is  cold  and  bleak,  and  I  daresay  it  will 
rain — perhaps  snow.  It  is  cosy  here.  And  I  am 
my  own  mistress.  I  need  not  go  out  in  chill  wind, 
or  foul  weather,  as  many  poor  women  must.  Yet 
out  I  must  go.  Not  to  the  town.  I  know  the  town 
by  heart,  and  I'm  not  in  the  mood  for  its  tidy  de- 
cency and  smugness.  Besides  there's  a  ball  at  the 
palace,  and  the  ladies  will  be  buying  fal-lais.  I  will 
go  out  there;  it's  odd  how  often  I  feel  I  must  go 
there.  Yet,  though  it  is  the  sea,  it  is  a  sea  so  differ- 
ent. I  like  the  ugliness  of  this  sea;  it  is  flat,  and 
grey,  and  plain;  but  honest,  somehow.     Not,"  and 


THE  LADY  OF  THE  DUNESHORE    41 

she  shivered,  and  the  awful  look  came  darkling  all 
athwart  her  lovely  face,  "not  cruel,  mean,  cowardly, 
treacherous!     Ah,  God!" 

She  did  not  call  her  maid,  but  made  herself  ready 
to  go  out  without  her  help.  Her  three  servants 
were  all  Helsingers;  she  had  brought  no  maid  with 
her  whence  she  came. 

Her  house  was  the  last  towards  the  dunes,  and  in 
a  few  minutes  she  was  walking  on  them  towards  the 
sea,  but  still  not  in  sight  of  it. 

There  was  not  much  wind,  which  made  it  more 
likely  that  the  leaden  sky  would  empty  itself  of  rain 
or  sleet — or,  perhaps,  regular  snow.  It  was  cold 
enough;  and  when,  as  happened  now  and  then,  there 
came  a  pallid  glint  of  sunlight,  the  dunes  looked 
all  the  colder  for  it.  In  the  higher  regions  of  the 
air  there  must  have  been  more  movement  than  down 
upon  the  earth's  surface,  or  those  rendings  of  the 
ragged  clouds,  which  let  the  pale  yellow  sunlight 
down,  would  not  have  come. 

"I  suppose  for  ever,"  said  Ida,  as  if  answering 
herself,  answering  some  question  that  had  asked  it- 
self in  her  mind. 

Then  she  came  to  the  ridge  of  the  highest  line  of 
dunes  and  looked  out  across  the  sea.  It  was  full 
tide  and  the  belt  of  sand  between  it  and  her  was 
narrow.  It  was  of  a  dusky  green,  laced  with  white, 
but  thinly;  here  and  there  were  darker  patches. 
When  one  of  those  chilly  sun-gleams  shone  down 
these  patches  became  deep  purple,  shading  to  slaty 
black  in  the  centre,  paling  to  amethyst  at  their 
fringe;  and  then  the  green  of  the  waste  around, 
where  it  lay  in  the  cold  light,  was  yellowish — the 
green  of  young  larch  foliage. 

There  were  no  islands  in  sight  here,  though  there 
were  many  along  the  coast.  There  was  no  ship,  or 
boat,  upon  the  desolate  water. 


42  THE  TIDEWAY 

"  'Great  as  the  sea  is  thy  affliction,  who  can  heal 
it?'  "  the  girl  quoted. 

Then  she  went  down  and  walked  upon  the  hard 
sand,  only  a  few  feet  from  the  breaking  of  the 
waves. 

"Bitter,"  she  said  aloud,  "altogether  bitter." 

A  sea-gull  let  himself  fall,  with  a  loud  scream  like 
laughter,  swerving,  slantwise,  down  quite  close  to 
her. 

For  many  minutes  she  walked  with  eyes  bent  upon 
the  breaking  waves  close  at  her  side;  their  monoto- 
nous iteration  soothed  her  like  a  drug.  And  the 
clean  salt  air  was  doing  her  good.  She  was  healthy 
by  nature,  not  only  in  body,  but  in  mind  and  heart, 
too;  only  a  horribly  poisoned  wound  had  stricken 
her  heart  and  spirit. 

After  she  had  been  out  fully  an  hour  the  sun- 
gleams  ceased,  and  there  was  nothing  but  the  leaden 
sky  and  the  leaden  sea.  The  clouds  had  knit  to- 
gether, and  cowered  lower  down.  Still  it  was  not 
yet  late  in  the  afternoon,  and  such  light  as  there 
was  should  last  some  time  yet;  she  hardly  wanted  to 
get  home  till  there  should  be  excuse  for  shutting  out 
the  dreary  day  altogether.  Presently  the  humor 
took  her  to  leave  the  beach,  and  go  back  among 
the  dunes.  She  passed  over  the  ridge  into  a  shallow 
depression  between  it  and  the  next  range  of  hillocks, 
not  a  straight  little  valley,  but  twisting,  for  the  hil- 
locks did  not  lie  in  parallels.  She  had  not  walked 
there  five  minutes  before,  turning  round  the  broken 
base  of  one  of  the  hillocks  (broken  by  some  high 
tidal  wave),  she  met  quite  face  to  face  a  man,  whose 
surprise  seemed  less  than  her  own. 

Oddly  enough  he  instantly  explained  himself. 

"I  saw  you  before,"  he  said,  standing  still  and  re- 
moving his  hat.  "I  saw  you  walking  by  the 
sea. 


THE  LADY  OF  THE  DUNESHORE    43 

You  did  not  see  me — that  was  plain;  and  you  did 
not  imagine  but  that  you  had  the  whole  sea  and 
shore  to  yourself.  I  felt  an  intruder.  If  I  had 
walked  on  we  must  have  met,  and  I  thought  it  might 
almost  startle  you;  I  should  have  come  so  very  near 
you  before  you  knew.  So  I  climbed  over  the  ridge 
and  came  to  continue  my  walk  here.  And  now  I 
have  come  upon  you  still  more  suddenly.  I  hope  it 
has  not  startled  you.  If  it  has,  I  am  sure  I  beg  your 
pardon." 

She  had  not  been  exactly  startled;  but  in  all  her 
many  walks  here  she  had  never  met  anyone  but  a 
fisherman,  very  rarely  anyone  at  all.  She  was  cer- 
tainly surprised.  But  there  was  nothing  alarming 
about  him.  He  was  a  gentleman,  and  young — per- 
haps half  a  dozen  years  older  than  herself;  his  face 
was  pleasant,  very  kind  and  courteous,  like  his  man- 
ner and  his  voice.  There  was  almost  a  smile  in  his 
quiet,  manly  eyes,  but  he  did  not  smile  outright,  sim- 
ply because  a  smile  would  have  been  a  little  greater 
approach  to  familiarity,  and  it  was  clearly  his  de- 
sire to  treat  her  with  extreme  deference.  He  had 
spoken  German,  and  in  German  she  answered,  but 
it  was  not  very  correct,  and  her  accent  was  foreign. 

"Oh,"  she  said,  "the  sea  and  shore  do  not  belong 
to  me !  You  could  not  have  been  an  intruder. 
No,  you  did  not  startle  me.  Only  I  never  met 
anyone  out  here  before,  and  I  come  here  very 
often." 

He  still  stood  uncovered,  and  he  did  not  imme- 
diately move  away.  "I  am  afraid,"  he  said,  look- 
ing up  at  the  lowering  sky,  "that  you  are  walking 
in  the  wrong  direction.  I  am  weather-wise,  and 
it  will  snow  very  soon." 

"Oh,  will  it?"  then  she  asked  him  to  replace  his 
hat,  and  he  did  so,  saying: 

"In    a    snow-storm    on    these    dunes    one    might 


44  THE  TIDEWAY 

easily  wander  far  and  be  lost.  When  it  starts 
snowing  it  will  go  on  all  night — perhaps  much 
longer,  unless  the  wind  shifts.  Perhaps  you  do  not 
know  the  weather  here  as  well  as  I  do." 

"I  have  never  been  here  at  this  season.  I  came 
at  the  end  of  last  winter.  No,  I  do  not  know  what 
your  weather  is  like." 

"It  is  not  exactly  my  weather,"  he  said,  and  now 
he  did  smile,  "though  I  have  been  here  at  all  sea- 
sons.    You  see,  I  am  a  sailor." 

It  did  not  surprise  her.  There  was  something 
in  his  face  that  answered  to  it;  something  in  the 
grave  and  courageous  eyes,  that  were  not  melan- 
choly, but  only  steadfast;  something,  too,  in  the 
smooth,  browned  complexion. 

"If  you  would  not  think  it  impertinent  of  me  to 
advise  you,"  he  said,  with  a  singular  firm  gentle- 
ness, "I  should  urge  you  not  to  walk  on  in  the 
direction  you  seem  to  be  going,  but  to  turn  home." 

Most  certainly  there  was  nothing  like  imperti- 
nence in  his  manner  of  tendering  this  prudent 
counsel.   ■ 

"Oh,  I  think  you  are  very  wise — and  kind,"  she 
answered.  But  the  word  "home"  that  he  had  used 
brought  a  swift  start  of  loneliness  to  the  girl's  mind. 
Her  home  had  been  murdered. 

There  are  faces  behind  whose  thickness  few  emo- 
tions move  visibly,  but  Ida's  was  not  one  of  them. 
Just  as  her  brilliant  color  came  and  went  behind 
the  bright  clearness  of  her  skin,  so  was  her  coun- 
tenance but  a  thin  veil  of  her  transient  emotions  of 
pain  or  gladness. 

At  first  he  had  set  her  down  as  a  woman,  though 
a  very  young  one — perhaps  of  two  or  three  and 
twenty.  Something  in  her  grace  and  dignity  of  bear- 
ing had  made  him,  without  arguing  the  point,  assume 
her  to  be  a  married  woman.    But  now  she  seemed  to 


THE  LADY  OF  THE  DUNESHORE    45 

him  very  girlish  and  her  youth  had  an  almost  child- 
like appeal. 

"Come,  then!"  he  said,  with  a  very  pleasant  air 
of  protection,  like  an  elder  brother's.  And,  as  if  it 
was  the  simplest  and  most  natural  thing,  he  walked 
at  her  side. 

"I  think  I  can  show  you  a  near  way  to  the  town," 
he  explained — but  not  as  if  in  excuse  of  giving  her 
his  escort. 

"Oh,"  she  said,  but  not  in  the  least  drawing  back 
from  that  escort,  "I  do  not  live  in  the  town." 

"Ah,  you  live  here." 

"Yes — I  do,  now.  But  my  little  house  is  the  very 
nearest  to  these  dunes;  not  in  the  town  at  all,  but  in 
St.  Blarien." 

"That  is  all  the  better.  For  it  is  much  nearer,  and 
the  snow  will  be  here  very  soon.  See,  there  is  a 
flake." 

"You,"  she  asked,  with  a  quite  frank  curiosity, 
"do  you  live  here?" 

"Well,  I  am  a  sailor,  as  I  said.  My  town  is  a 
ship.  But  I  know  Helsing  well,  and  have  lived 
there." 

"Ah!  If  you  lived  there  now  I  must  have  met 
you.  One  knows  by  sight  everyone — from  the  Duke 
and  Duchess  downwards;  but  I  never  saw  you  be- 
fore." 

"Nor  I  you." 

He  was  quite  sure  he  should  have  remembered 
her  had  he  seen  her  once.     Then  he  added: 

"I  have  been  away — very  far  away;  and  for  just 
over  a  year.     I  wonder  how  you  like  Helsing?" 

"Oh — well  enough;  pretty  well;  not  very  much." 

Yet  she  had  come  to  live  there;  not  belonging  to 
it,  she  must  have  chosen  it. 

"It  isn't,"  he  admitted,  "particularly  lively." 

"No.     Nor  am  I." 


46  THE  TIDEIVAY 

He  hardly  knew  whether  this  confession,  if  it  was 
one,  surprised  him  or  no.  It  had  seemed  to  him 
that  her  eyes  were  windows  through  which  looked 
out  a  nature  that  was  cheerful,  and  yet  he  had  seen 
that  sudden  glint  of  sadness  (it  was  not  a  shadow, 
but  a  wan  gleam  like  those  that  a  little  while  ago 
had  slanted  from  time  to  time  across  the  dunes) 
which  crossed  her  face  when  he  had  spoken  of  her 
home. 

He  made  no  response  to  this  little  saying  of  hers; 
a  sort  of  compliment,  or  some  sort  of  question, 
would  have  been  almost  the  only  response  possible, 
and  he  was  too  respectful  to  compliment  or  to 
question. 

The  flakes  of  snow  were  falling  a  little  more 
thickly,  but  they  were  as  yet  thin,  small  and  dry, 
and  there  was  even  less  wind  than  before.  Such 
as  it  was  it  was,  however,  coming  to  meet  them — 
out  of  the  east. 

"Look,"  she  said  presently,  "that  is  my  little 
house  over  there.  The  snow  can't  be  much,  or  we 
would  not  see  it." 

"Oh  no !  It  is  nothing  yet.  But  it  isn't  going  to 
stop,  and  it  will  soon  be  thick  enough." 

He  had  eyes  that  were  used  to  scan  wide  dis- 
tances, and  they  were  turned  towards  the  lit- 
tle house  with  decided  interest.  It  certainly 
looked  lonely.  She  knew  he  was  considering  it,  and 
said: 

"It  looks  black  now,  and  ugly.  But  it  is  not  bad 
inside.  It  is  warm  and  comfortable.  I  come  out 
here  on  these  cold,  ill-tempered  dunes  to  make  my- 
self like  it  a  little." 

"I  rather  like  the  dunes.    An  odd  taste,  eh?" 

"I  don't  know.  Perhaps  /  like  them — in  a  fash- 
ion. At  all  events  I  like  them  better  than  anything 
else  here." 


•       THE  LADY  OF  THE  DUNES  HO  RE    47 

"You  are  not,  like  me,  their  old  friend.  There 
are  not  dunes  everywhere." 

Immediately  she  seemed  to  wrap  a  cloak  of  si- 
lence round  herself,  even  though  she  spoke  again 
before  long.  He  felt  instantly  that  he  had  said 
something  amiss. 

"I  suppose,"  she  said  presently,  "that  you  can 
understand  my  German,  but  I  know  it  is  bad." 

"It  is  not  bad  at  all.  Of  course  I  can  understand 
it.  I  myself  have  had  to  learn  and  speak  many  lan- 
guages, and  English,  French,  Norse,  Danish  and 
even  Russian  are  nearly  as  easy  to  me  as  German." 

"But  you  are  German?" 

"Oh,"  said  he,  laughing,  "I'm  a  Helsinger.  But 
my  mother  is  Russian,  and  my  grandmother,  who 
is  still  alive,  is  a  Dane." 

Ill 

Around  Ida's  house  was  a  garden,  and  at  the 
gate  the  young  sailor  again  uncovered,  even  while 
he  opened  it  for  her  to  pass  through. 

For  a  moment  she  hesitated,  then,  with  a  smile 
that  he  thought  more  characteristic  of  herself  than 
anything  she  had  said,  she  asked  him,  with  frank 
goodwill  to  come  in. 

"My  tea  will  be  ready,"  she  said,  "and  it  is  not 
a  bit  late.  Your  snow  hasn't  come  to  much  yet. 
But  a  cup  of  English  tea  will  do  you  good." 

He  thought  anything  she  might  give  him  would 
do  him  good;  but  that  he  could  not  say. 

"I  shall  melt,  and  wet  your  room,"  he  said  laugh- 
ing. 

"Oh,  no !  Only  your  overcoat  is  a  little  snowy, 
like  my   cloak.    Come!      I   took  your   advice;   take 


mme." 


"Certainly   1   will." 


48  THE  TIDEWAY 

And  they  had,  in  fact,  already  almost  reached 
the  porch. 

"Oh,  Madame !"  cried  Ida's  maid,  opening  the 
door  and  coming  out.  "Madame  went  out,  and  1 
didn't  know.  I  should  have  taken  the  liberty  of 
warning  Madame  that  it  would  snow;  and  now  she 
is  wet." 

"Scarcely  at  all;  my  cloak  only.  See,  even  my 
boots  are  hardly  wet." 

"Please  change  them,  though,"  urged  the  sailor. 
"Madame  should  change  them  at  once,"  he  de- 
clared, still  quite  with  an  elder-brotherly  manner, 
as  he  turned  from  Ida  to  her  maid. 

"Very  well — Elsa,  take  this  gentleman  into  the 
drawing-room — I  will  join  you  in  a  moment." 

It  was  very  dark  in  the  entrance  hall,  which  had 
only  one  window  of  thickened  glass,  and  was  hung 
with  dim  old  tapestries.  Even  in  the  drawing-room 
it  was  dusk;  but  the  fire  cast  a  pleasant  warm  light, 
and  shaded  lamps  were  being  set  about,  on  the  piano 
and  several  tables,  by  Ida's  housemaid. 

As  the  woman  turned  to  leave  the  room  she  shot 
a  sharp  glance  at  her  mistress's  visitor,  but  he  was 
tall,  and  the  lamps  cast  their  light  no  higher  than 
his  waist;  his  back  was  to  the  window,  and  she 
could  not  make  out  much  of  his  face. 

Almost  immediately  Ida  reappeared,  and  then 
her  maid  and  housemaid  came  back  bearing  tea- 
things — silver  tray  and  urn,  a  little  special  table, 
and  so  on. 

In  obedience  to  his  hostess's  invitation,  the  young 
man  sat  down  in  a  low  chair  near  the  hearth-rug, 
and  here  the  light  of  a  lamp  fell  full  upon  his  face. 

"What  a  delightful  room !"  he  said  glancing 
round. 

"I  told  you  it  was  not  uncomfortable." 

"No  !    But  you  didn't  tell  me  it  was  full  of  charm- 


THE  LADY  OF  THE  DUNESHORE    49 

ing  things.  I  don't  believe  there  is  such  a  nice  room 
in  Helsing." 

Having  arranged  the  tea-things,  the  two  servants 
went  to  the  windows  and  drew  the  warm  curtains 
close.  Then,  as  they  went  to  the  door,  they  both 
turned,  and  simultaneously  dropped  each  a  quick, 
perpendicular  courtesy. 

Ida's  back  was  towards  them,  and  she  did  not 
see  it.  The  young  man  nodded,  and  made  a  little 
quick  gesture  with  one  hand.  Neither  did  Ida  see 
that,  as  she  was  attending  to  her  tea-cups. 

*'You  have  been  here,"  he  said,  when  the  women 
had  gone  out,  "only  a  few  months.  And  all  these 
things  of  yours  look  as  if  they  had  been  here  al- 
ways." 

"I  daresay  you  think  they  belong  to  me — I  only 
bought  them.  I  do  not  even  know  who  that  is," 
and  she  pointed  to  a  fine  seventeenth  century  por- 
trait, "but  it  is  a  good  picture,  and  the  woman's 
face  interested  me.     So  I  bought  it." 

"I  can  tell  you  who  it  Is,"  he  said,  after  he  had 
risen  to  examine  it  more  closely,  and  sat  down  again. 
"It  is  Juana  la  Loca,  mother  of  Charles  V,  and 
daughter  of  Ferdinand  and  Isabella.  Her  husband 
and  lover  was  Philip  of  Burgundy.  'Jane  the  Mad.' 
It  is  a  splendid  picture,  and  you  are  lucky  to  have 
found  it." 

"I  didn't  look  for  It;  it  found  me.  How  strange 
that  you  should  recognize  it  at  once." 

"Oh,  I  have  had  Spanish  ancestors,  too.  And  I 
know  a  little  about  those  sorts  of  things." 

"Spaniards  or  portraits?" 

"Both,  perhaps." 

"You  are  rather  a  learned  sailor."  And  Ida 
laughed. 

"Poor  Juana!"  he  said,  laughing  too.  "Her  hus- 
band behaved  hatefully  to  her.   And  she  adored  him; 


50  THE  TIDEWAY 

it  was  part  of  her  madness.  She  took  his  dead  body 
with  her  in  all  her  travels." 

As  he  spoke  he  arose  to  take  the  tea  Ida  had 
poured-  out  for  him,  and,  after  another  glance  at 
the  portrait,  he  looked  down  upon  her. 

That  awful  expression  had  come  into  her  lovely 
face — upturned  towards  the  portrait,  as  it  were  in 
sympathy  with  his  allusions  to  its  original.  Her 
beautiful  hands  lay  in  her  lap — lifeless-looking.  And 
in  her  deep  and  exquisite  eyes  was  that  appealing 
look,  as  of  an  innocent,  helpless,  agonized  creature 
who  had  been  forced  to  witness  a  dastardly  crime. 

I  do  not  think  the  young  sailor  ever  forgot  it. 
Whenever  he  thought  of  it  afterwards  he  told  him- 
self: "She  is  the  victim  of  some  horrible  offense; 
something  cruel,  mean,  devilish;  yes,  something 
cowardly  and  base.  For  she  herself  is  full  of  cour- 
age and  generous  trust."  It  made  him  hate  some- 
body, and  all  the  more  vehemently  that  there  was 
neither  name  nor  image  in  which  to  house  that 
hatred. 

At  this  moment  he  felt  something  he  had  never 
known  before — the  presence  of  a  difficulty  in  face 
of  which  he  was  wholly  powerless. 

Not  for  an  instant,  after  that  first  one,  did  he 
let  his  eyes  rest  on  her  face.  He  took  his  cup,  and, 
though  all  his  nature  turned  to  her,  he  turned  his 
back  to  her,  and  as  he  moved  away  went  on  talking 
as  if  he  had  seen  nothing  to  interrupt  him.  Yet  she 
knew  he  had  seen.  And,  to  account,  as  it  were,  for 
it,  she  also  spoke. 

"A  ghastly  story." 

"Isn't  it?  To  drag  with  one  everywhere  the 
corpse  of  a  dead  love." 

He  sat  down,  and  looked  into  the  fire.  He  had 
not  the  least  idea  what  to  say.  He  had  not  the 
least  idea  if  she  were  herself  a  widow — on  her  fin- 


THE  LADY  OF  THE  DUNESHORE    51 

get-  he  had  seen  there  was  a  wedding  ring.  Yet  she 
must  be  a  widow;  what  memories  must  be  her  fel- 
low-travelers wherever  she  went. 

Almost  immediately  she  spoke  again — trivially, 
of  a  trivial  matter.  "There  is  no  sugar.  They  have 
forgotten  it.     Do  you  take  it?" 

"Oh,  yes.     Lots  of  it.     I  think  all  sailors  do." 

"Then  will  you  ring?" 

He  did  so  at  once,  and  the  prim,  elderly  house- 
maid appeared. 

"You  forgot  the  sugar,"  said  her  mistress. 

The  woman  seemed  covered  with  confusion.  In 
a  minute  or  two  she  returned,  set  the  heavy  bowl 
down,  and  before  retreating  again  turned  to  the 
young  man,  and  dropped  another  perpendicular 
curtsey.  This  time  Ida  saw;  and  as  soon  as  the 
door  had  closed  she  said: 

"What  is  that  for?  I  never  saw  it  done  before. 
Is  it  the  Helsing  etiquette  ?" 

"I  suppose  so,"  he  answered,  laughing. 

"Well,  I  never  saw  it.  Let  me  see.  Before  I 
bought  this  little  house  I  lived  in  the  Golden  Swan 
for  a  month.  Ah!  there  were  waiters  there;  I  sup- 
pose they  do  not  curtsey  to  young  men. 

"Oh,  no.     Look  here,  Madame 

"Madame  Petersen.    That  is  my  name. 

"Well,  I  had  better  tell  you  mine.  I  see  your 
servants  know  me,  and  they  will  certainly  tell  you 
if  I  do  not.     I  am  Anton  von  Helsing-Weissburg." 

"One  of  the  Duke's  sons?" 

"No.  One  of  his  five  brothers'  six  sons.  Per- 
haps that's  why  they  let  me  be  a  sailor." 

Ida  laughed.  "Ought  I,"  she  asked,  "to  get  up 
and  curtsey  like  Luisa?" 

They  were  both  of  them  grateful  for  this  touch 
of  comedy.     Luisa  had  been  a  benefactress. 

"That    old    warrior,"    he    explained    presently, 


52  THE  TIDEWAY 

pointing  to  another  portrait,  "is  an  ancestor  of 
mine.  Duke  Ernst  the  Red;  and  another  excellent 
portrait." 

"What  a  good  thing,"  said  Ida,  laughing,  "that 
I  did  not  pretend  he  was  an  heirloom.  I  might 
have  christened  him,  as  a  lady  I  once  knew  used  to 
christen  the  old  portraits  she  picked  up — after  mem- 
bers of  her  own  family.  'That,'  she  said  to  me  one 
day,  pointing  her  tea-pot  at  a  new  arrival,  'is  my 
father's  great-grandfather,  Lord  Newgrange,  the 
famous  lawyer.  A  great  man,  but  queer  and  much 
behind  the  times.'  'He  dressed  behind  them,'  I 
dared  to  tell  her,  'unless  he  was  got  up  for  a  fancy- 
dress  ball.  That's  a  Dutch  Admiral's  uniform  of 
the  time  of  William  the  Silent.'  She  didn't  mind  a 
bit.  *Oh  that — '  she  said,  'you  mean  the  man  in 
the  blue  coat.  He  was  Dutch :  Admiral  Van  Eyck 
— he  came  over  to  escort  Charles  I's  daughter  to 
Holland,  and  married  my  ancestress.  Lady  Mar- 
cia  de  Grandechose.  You're  looking  at  the  wrong 
picture.'     Suppose  /  had  claimed  your  ancestor!" 

"I  should  have  been  delighted  to  share  him  with 
you." 

"You  are  most  generous!  Joseph  Surface  didn't 
mind  selling  his  ancestors,  but  you  are  ready  to  give 
yours  away  for  nothing." 

"Ah!  You  read  Sheridan.  Shall  we  talk  Eng- 
lish?" 

"Certainly,  if  you  like.     But  I  am  not  English." 

She  paused  a  moment  as  if  about  to  add  some- 
thing, and  he  guessed  that  she  was  about  to  say 
what  she  was,  if  not  English.  But  she  changed  her 
mind  and  said  no  more. 

He  did  not  wish  to  go  away  till  she  had  had  time 
to  recover  entirely  from  whatever  it  was  that  had 
brought  that  dreadful  look  into  her  eyes;  and  so 
he  stayed  on.     They  talked  very  cheerfully,   and 


THE  LADY  OF  THE  DUNES  HO  RE    53 

the  discovery  of  her  guest's  princely  rank  did  not 
seem  to  make  the  least  difference  to  Ida's  calm  and 
self-possessed  friendliness. 

"To-night,"  he  said,  "there  is  a  ball  at  the  pal- 
ace. If  you  are  going  to  it  I  wonder  if  you  would 
promise  me  a  dance  beforehand?" 

"Oh  no,  I  am  not  going.  I  do  not  go  anywhere. 
As  to  the  palace — I  am  not  eligible ;  I  have  not  been 
presented  to  the  Duchess,  and  I  never  dreamed  of 
being." 

"I  wish  you  were  going  to  the  ball.  I  should 
look  forward  to  it  much  more." 

"It  is  very  kind  of  your  Highness  to  say  so.  But 
you  will  certainly  never  meet  me  in  society.  I  do  not 
say  I  shall  never  dance  again;  but  I  cannot  imagine 
how  the  occasion  to  do  so  should  ever  arise;  for  I 
bought  this  little  home  intending  to  settle  down  here 
— forever;  and  I  shall  not,  certainly,  ever  mix  in  the 
gay  world  of  Helsing." 

He  laughed  lightly  and  said: 

"Such  a  gay  world  as  it  is."  Then,  after  a  mo- 
ment's pause,  he  turned  his  frank  and  grave  eyes 
to  hers  and  said: 

"We  never  met  till  to-day;  and  I  am  not  given 
to  impertinence;  but  I  cannot  simply  laugh  as  I  hear 
you  speak  of  shutting  yourself  up  alone  here  for- 
ever.    It  makes,  to  my  mind,  a  terrible  picture." 

She  shook  her  head  gently,  and  he  went  on,  with 
a  glance  around  the  room. 

"I  do  not  mean  that  there  is  anything  terrible  in 
your  home.  It  is  delightful;  and,  somehow,  fits 
you;  makes  a  fit  background." 

"Of  course  I  know  what  you  mean.  You  mean 
that  I  am  too  young  to  say  that  here  I  will  sit — till  I 
die." 

She  stooped  a  little  forward,  and  he  saw  some 
soundless  words  upon  her  lips.     I  do  not  say  that 


54  THE  TIDEWAY 

he  could  have  read  them  by  the  mere  motion  of  her 
lips;  but  they  had  leaped  into  his  own  memory: 

"Here  I  and  sorrow  sit. 
Here  is  my  throne. 
Let  kings  come  bow  to  it." 

He  was  only  a  prince;  but  with  all  the  deep  chiv- 
alry of  a  noble  and  gentle  nature,  he  bowed  to  it. 
Her  eyes  were  tearless;  the  horrible  look  had  not 
come  back,  but  all  her  girlish  youth  and  grace 
crouched  in  sorrow. 

"Forgive  me,"  he  said,  in  a  plain,  low  voice. 

"No,  I  thank  you.  I  know,  from  the  first  mo- 
ment, how  good  you  are.  It  is  a  great  thing  to  feel 
such  kindness  near  one.  If  I  do  not  ask  you  to 
come  again  believe  me  there  is  a  good  reason.  I 
should  like  to  ask  you." 

"May  I  come  unasked?" 

"I  think  not." 

He  felt  sure  her  reason  must  be  a  good  one.  He 
certainly  was  not  going  to  try  and  clutch  it  from 
her.  But  it  seemed  intolerable  to  think  that  he 
could  not  come  again. 

"That  picture,"  she  said  presently,  without  turn- 
ing to  it,  yet  he  knew  at  once  which  she  meant,  "I 
can  no  longer  bear  it  here.     You  say  it  is  a  fine 


one." 


j» 


"Very  fine.' 

"May  I  give  it  to  you?" 

"But — it  is,  perhaps,  priceless;  a  princely  gift." 

"And  you   are   a  prince." 

"That  is  not  my  fault." 

"It  is  not  a  fault.     Nor  a  misfortune — " 

"Surely  that  is  not  why  I  may  not  come  back 
here!" 

"That  was  not  my  reason.  But  it  is  another  rea- 
son.   Will  you  have  the  picture?" 


THE  LADY  OF  THE  DUNESHORE    55 

"If  I  should  say,  No!" 

"I  would  burn  it." 

"Why  not  sell  it?  I  could  very  easily  sell  it  for 
you." 

"Sell  that  poor  lady,  and  her  story !  No,  thank 
you." 

"Then  I  will  accept  your  gift.  But,  Madame,  do 
you  not  see  that  you  put  me  in  an  awkward  place? 
I  am  to  accept  at  your  hands  a  very  costly  gift,  and 
you  forbid  me  to  come  again  even  to  thank  you. 
And  I  may  give  you  nothing." 

"You  may  give  me  a  thing  I  should  value — your 
friendship." 

"And  I  am  never  to  see  you  again!" 

"Does  friendship  lie  in  seeing  one's  friends?  I 
thought  you  would  have  known  better." 

"I  do.  Though  we  should  never  meet  again  I 
will  be  your  friend.  Forever." 

"While  I  sit  here!" 

"Yes." 

She  stood  up,  but  not  as  giving  him  signal  of  de- 
parture. Looking  down  into  the  fire  she  spoke  again. 

"Prince  Anton.  Listen.  I  treasure  your  gift. 
Sitting  here  I  shall  not  forget  it — nor  you.  Yet 
it  is  to  forget  that  I  sit  here.  I  am  young,  as  you 
say — just  over  twenty  years  old;  but  though  I  sit 
here — till  I  die — it  will  not  be  easy  to  forget.  That 
is  my  business." 

She  was  quite  dry-eyed;  but  his  eyes  burned  and 
glistened. 

"Ah,  dear  God!"  he  cried,  "if  I  could  be  your 
brother." 

"I  wish,"  she  said,  smiling,  and  looking  straight 
at  him,  "I  wish  you  were.  Eh!  how  kind  you  are. 
But  I  have  no  brother,  no  sister,  no  father  or 
mother;  I  am  free  to  go  where  I  will  in  all  this 
haunted   world.      So    I    came    here — to    forget.      I 


f 
S6  THE  TIDEWAY 

never  imagined  it  would  be  easy,  or  could  be  done 
quickly.  Perhaps  it  never  can  be  done.  Only  I 
shall  try,  and  I  must  try  alone.  I  have  to  do  what 
she,  Juana  la  Loca,  did  from  choice.  The  corpse 
is  horrible,  intolerable;  but  I  must  carry  it  with  me 
in  my  travels  till  I  can  forget.  She  did  it  for  love ; 
— I  for  loathing.  I  also  had  a  husband.  I  am  not 
a  widow,  though  I  wished  Helsing  to  believe  me  one. 
But  he  is  dead — and  turned  altogether  to  corrup- 
tion." 

She  hardly  paused,  and  then  finished. 

"Look,"  she  said.  "You  ask  to  come  again,  and 
I  said  No.  I  say  it  again.  And,  because  you  are 
what  you  are,  noble  and  generous,  you  would  not 
try  and  snatch  my  reason  from  me.  You  see  that 
I  have  just  spoken  as  women  do  not  speak.  I  will 
be  still  less  like  other  women.  I  will  tell  you  my  rea- 
son. I  ask  you  not  to  come  back.  I  forbid  you  to 
come  back.  A  little  while  ago  I  sat  there  picturing 
the  pleasantness  of  it — how  friendly  and  pleasant 
it  would  be  if  you  could  come  often,  constantly. 
Dear  Christ !  how  lonely  I  am  !  But  I  am  not  blind, 
though  I  may  seem  to  you  shameless  presently — " 

"Nay,  Madame,  that  I  will  not  have  you  say." 

"Listen  first.  I  am  not  blind.  If  you  were  to  do 
as  I  dreamt  for  half  an  hour,  and  come  here  often, 
often  as  we  should  both  of  us  wish — I  know  you 
wish  it.  I  know  I  do.  This  would  be  the  end  of  it. 
I  should  love  you,  and  you  would  love  me.  Now 
you  see  how  shamelessly  I  can  speak." 

"There  is  no  shame  in  it.  Only  that  would  not 
be  the  end,  but  the  beginning " 

"Ah!  And,  Prince  Anton,  I  have  a  husband. 
His  body  is  not  dead,  but  alive  and  young.  It  is 
his  soul  that  is  dead — the  soul,  at  all  events,  of  our 
marriage.  We  are  not  even  divorced.  So  far  as  I 
know  his  crime  would  not  make  any  Judge  declare 
me   free  to  divorce  him.     Listen:  he  believes  me 


THE  LADY  OF  THE  DUNES  HO  RE    57 

dead,  and  he  may  even  now  have  taken  another 
wife — God  help  her  if  that  be  so !  But  I  am  bound 
to  the  loathsome  memory  of  him.  It  is  his  memory 
I  try  to  forget — the  memory  of  what  he  did.  And 
common  sense  shouts  to  me  that  I  never  can  forget. 
At  any  rate,  I  cannot  love,  and  I  should  soon  love 
you." 

She  had  called  herself  shameless,  and  she  had 
spoken  as  women  do  not;  and  spoken  without 
shame.  Yet  he  knew  that  she  was  noble  and 
womanly,  girlish  rather;  wise,  too,  and  fearless.  He 
already  loved  and  worshipped  her,  and  knew  that 
she  knew  that  it  was  so,  and  that  he  would  not  dare 
to  set  it  out  in  words,  or  in  any  gesture.  Because 
women  who  are  pure  and  honest  scarce  ever  dare 
speak  as  she  had  spoken.  Words  are  written  that 
are  not  pure.  Their  silent  modesty  engenders  the 
whole  plot,  the  whole  generation  of  pregone  con- 
clusions. 

Anton  had  long  ago  risen,  and  he  stood  watching 
her  and  listening;  he  had  only  risen,  and  had  not 
moved  a  step  nearer  to  her.  He  felt  for  her  an 
immeasurable  respect.  She  looked  so  girlish,  and 
so  womanly,  so  simply  innocent;  and  yet  her  dignity 
was  marvellous.  She  had  used  astounding  words, 
and  they  had  only  increased  her  dignity.  He  did 
not  for  an  instant  fall  into  the  absurd  mistake  of 
thinking  that  she  was  saying  that  she  already  loved 
him,  or  that  he  already  loved  her.  She  had  asked 
for  his  friendship,  and  he  knew  her  to  be  saying 
once  for  all  that  she  neither  could  or  would  give 
him  anything  beyond  friendship;  and  because  she 
would  not  she  would  run  no  risks,  or  suffer  him  to 
run  any. 

"You  are  very  wise  and  altogether  noble,"  he 
said.  "It  is  unfortunate  that  my  own  past  must 
be,  in  comparison  of  yours,  but  a  sorry  one " 

"Stay,"  she  interrupted.     "I  cannot  let  that  pass. 


58  THE  TIDEWAY 

It  was  I  who  askfd  yovi  in  here.  That  was  my 
doing.  A  silly  obedience  to  two  impulses — that  of 
mere  hospitality,  and  that  of  the  desire  to  be  less 
lonely  for  half  an  hour.  Almost  immediately  I 
knew  I  had  been  wrong." 

"You  were  not  wrong.  I  do  not  believe  you  are 
ever  wrong,  I  accept  your  dismissal  as  right  also. 
Before  I  go  I  ask  you  one  thing.  You  know  my 
name — will  you  tell  me  yours?" 

She  sat  down,  and  looked  up  into  his  face,  and 
answered : 

"I  never  meant  to  tell  any  human  being  my  name. 
But  I  will  tell  you.  It  was  Sylvia  Carstairs — I  am 
Scotch,  not  English — it  became  Sylvia  Garioch;  I 
call  myself  Ida  Petersen.  Please  think  of  me  as 
Madame  Petersen." 

"I  will.  And  now  I  am  going.  I  understand 
that  I  am  not  even  to  come  and  fetch  your  gift? 
I  cannot  take  It  away  now,  can  I?" 

"You  could  hardly  carry  it  on  your  back.  No," 
she  answered  laughing.  "But  if  you  send  for  it,  it 
shall  be  ready.  Tell  me,  Is  she  also  an  ancestor — 
ancestress — of  yours?" 

"Yes.     So  it  happens." 

"I  am  glad.  Because  I  like  to  think  she  has  happy 
descendants  after  all  her  pain.  I  feel  churlish 
enough  In  not  asking  you  to  come  and  fetch  her; 
but  you  see  I  have  said  so  much  that  I  think  it  bet- 
ter to  end  now.     So  good-by." 

And  she  stood  up,  and  dropped  a  little  curtsey 
like  Elsa's. 

Of  course  she  did  It  that  their  parting  might  be 
a  laughing  one. 

IV 

"I  thought  you  were  going  to  stay  at  home  for 
a  while." 

"So  I  did,  my  little  mother,"  said  Anton. 


THE  LADY  OF  THE  DUNESHORE    59 

"And  you  are  leaving  us  so  soon !" 

"I  think  it  best." 

The  Princess  had  always  assured  herself  that  she 
had  no  favorite  among  her  five  sons,  but  that  firm 
assurance  had  been  necessary,  for  Anton  was  more 
simpatico  than  any  of  his  brothers.  She  was  not  her- 
self German,  and  it  had  not  much  delighted  her 
when  she  was  first  made  aware  of  her  family's  deci- 
sion that  she  was  to  marry  a  German  princeling. 
Her  father  was  of  the  Russian  Imperial  family,  but 
only  very  distantly  related  to  the  Emperor,  and  he 
had  a  number  of  sons  and  daughters,  having  been 
twice  married.  She  was  the  youngest  of  his  chil- 
dren by  his  second  wife ;  her  face,  which  was  ex- 
tremely pleasant,  was  not  remarkable  for  beauty; 
and  an  accident  in  early  girlhood  had  left  her  with 
a  slight  limp.  So  that  the  marriage  with  Prince  Ru- 
dolph of  Helsing-Weissburg  had  not  seemed  to  her 
father  altogether  undesirable.  Theprlnce  was  of  rep- 
utable character,  handsome,  and,  like  all  his  family, 
sufficiently  wealthy.  He  was  certainly  very  Ger- 
man, and  his  destined  bride  did  not  much  like  Ger- 
mans, or  Germany  either;  but  she  knew  that  any 
suitor  proposed  for  her  would  probably  be  a  Ger- 
man, and  resigned  herself  to  the  inevitable.  She 
was  pretty  well  aware  that  her  father  thought  it 
advisable  she  should  be  married  without  delay,  for 
she  had  allowed  It  to  appear  that  she  saw  no  crime 
in  the  ill-dissembled  admiration  for  herself  of  a 
young  nobleman  without  the  least  pretence  to  royal 
or  princely  rank.  Without  pretension  to  beauty  she 
had  felt  the  more  Inclined  to  condone  Count  K.'s 
offense;  and,  though  she  had  not  fallen  In  love  her- 
self, she  had  suspected  that  she  might  have  done 
so  had  she  had  pluck  enough. 

She  had  not  believed  herself  in  love,  and  at  her 
marriage  she  had  not  the  least  Intention  of  carry- 
ing to  her  husband  a  broken  heart;  she  had  merely 


6o  THE  TIDEWAY 

decided  that  the  less  she  thought  of  heart  the  bet- 
ter. Prince  Rudolph  was  neither  jealous  nor  sus- 
picious, and  he  had  probably  never  heard  of  the 
existence  of  Count  K.  He  did  not  make  a  bad  sort 
of  husband,  and  his  wife  was  far  from  from  imag- 
ining herself  unhappy.  Her  sons  appeared,  and  she 
was  fond  of  them  all,  in  spite  of  their  being  Ger- 
mans— ^but  she  certainly  liked  Anton  the  best,  who, 
as  she  fancied,  was  much  less  German  than  his 
brothers.  As  he  grew  up  he  really  did  become  less 
German,  and  his  long  absences  in  other  parts  of 
the  world  helped  to  increase  this  tendency. 

Between  him  and  his  mother  there  was  another 
point  of  sympathy,  though  neither  of  them  said 
much,  if  anything,  about  it — they  were  both  of 
them  bored  by  the  whole  business  of  princeliness. 

As  for  Count  K.,  the  princess  had  not  often  de- 
liberately remembered  him,  but  she  had  never  for- 
gotten him;  and  at  one  time,  when  her  boys  were 
very  little  fellows,  she  did  occasionally  wonder 
whether  Prince  Rudolph  would  not  have  been  a 
happier  man  had  he  married,  instead  of  herself, 
a  certain  Fraulein  von  Z.,  and  whether  In  that  case 
it  would  not  have  been  well  for  her  to  have  braved 
all  difficulties  and  let  herself  fall  in  love  with  Count 
K.  and  marry  him,  too. 

But  all  this  was  now  very  ancient  history.  Frau- 
lein von  Z.  had  married  the  Graf  von  P.  (an  old 
schoolfellow  of  her  father's),  and  Count  K.  had 
married  two  ladies,  the  former  when  he  was  about 
thirty,  the  latter  when  he  was  nearly  fifty. 

"I  suppose,  my  son,"  said  the  Princess,  "I  am  to 
ask  no  questions." 

"I  think  that  also  will  be  best." 

"I  don't  wonder,"  said  Anton's  mother,  "that  you 
like  to  get  away  from  Helsing.  I  should  rather  like 
to  be  a  sailor  myself." 


THE  LADY  OF  THE  DUNESHORE    6i 

"Poor  little  Mother!  It  is  a  queer  little  corner, 
certainly,  when  one  is  stuck  fast  in  it." 

"I'm  jammed  in  it.  If  one  were  like  the  women 
one  sees  in  the  streets  and  in  the  Luxgarten"  (where 
all  Helsing  drove  every  day  of  its  life)  "one  could 
get  away.  I  think  der  Hebe  Gott  must  be  a  Repub- 
lican, he  makes  it  so  intolerable  for  princes  and 
princesses — especially   princesses." 

"Perhaps  we  make  it  intolerable  for  ourselves." 

"If  I  had  been  a  brave  person  and  energetic — 
whereas  I  was  an  arrant  coward  and  deadly  lazy — 
I  think  I  should  have  set  up  as  a  Reformer  of 
Princeliness.  It  is  a  downtrodden  caste  of  slaves 
that  no  one  ever  dreams  of  emancipating.  When 
shall  you  go?" 

"The  day  after  to-morrow." 

"And  you  only  arrived  two  weeks  ago.  And 
I'm  to  ask  no  questions.     Is  it  a  lady?" 

Anton  laughed. 

"For  one  who  asks  no  questions  you  go  pretty 
far!"  he  replied. 

"Ah,  then,  it  is  a  lady !  And  you  hurry  off  to 
her,  after  two  weeks.  It's  almost  as  bad  being  a 
mother  as  being  a  princess.  As  soon  as  one  has  sons 
they  begin  to  look  about  for  another  woman." 

"I  didn't  look  about  at  all.     She  arrived." 

"Anyway,  you  dash  away  from  your  mother  to 
get  back  to  her." 

"Quite  the  contrary." 

"Well,  you  came  home  two  weeks  ago,  and  the 
day  after  to-morrow  you  hasten  away  to  her.  Is 
she  a  Patagonian?" 

(Prince  Anton  had  visited  Patagonia  during  his 
late  absence.) 

"I  believe  not." 

"Will  it  take  a  long  voyage  to  reach  her?" 

"I  shall  not  see  her  for  a  very  long  time." 


62  THE  TIDEWAY 

"Anton,  what  a  mystery!  Perhaps  you  are  now 
going  to  the  South  Pole — that  is  the  fashionable 
resort;  it  used  to  be  the  North  Pole.  Are  there 
Laplanders  down  there?  I  hope  she  is  not  a  Lap- 
landerin." 

"I  have  not  the  honor  of  knowing  a  single  Lap- 
lander lady.  It  doesn't  occur  to  you  that  you  are 
asking  questions?" 

"Only  silly  ones.     Tell  me." 

"Tell  you  what?" 

"Where  are  you  going  to  her?" 

"I  am  not  going  to  her." 

"Oh,  Anton!  Do  you  pretend  that  it  is  not  for 
her  sake  you  are  going?" 

"No.  I  don't  pretend  that." 

Suddenly  the  Princess  ceased  (for  a  time)  to  ask 
questions.  "She  is  here''  she  told  herself.  And  she 
was  astounded.  She  knew  every  lady  in  Helsing — 
every  possible  lady.  It  must  be  an  impossible 
lady. 

Anton  perceived  instantly  that  she  was  not  carry- 
ing on  her  catechism,  and  was  able  to  guess  why. 

"Look  here,"  he  said  simply,  "I  don't  want  you 
to  imagine  things.     I  am  not  in  any  scrape." 

"I  can't  imagine  you  running  away  from  one. 
And  I  can't  imagine  your  being  in  one  that  made 
running   away   advisable." 

"No.     At  the  same  time  I  am  running  away." 

A  sudden  idea  flashed  wildly  into  his  mother's 
mind. 

"Anton!"  she  cried.  "Are  you  running — 
alone?" 

"Well,  not  quite.  There  will  be  a  good  many 
other  men  on  board." 

"Oh,  men." 

"You  seem,"  he  said,  laughing,  "rather  dis- 
appointed." 


THE  LADY  OF  THE  DUNESHORE    63 

"I  sniffed  a  romance.  And — and,  Anton,  / 
didn't  mind." 

She  also  laughed.  Then,  after  a  brief  pause, 
she  grew  quite  earnest  and  said : 

"You  would  never  care  for  anyone  who  was  un- 
worthy. I  am  su7'e  you  care  for  no  one  here 
whom  I  know,  no  one  who  comes  here  ..." 
(with  a  gesture  that  indicated  not  only  the 
place  where  they  were,  but  the  whole  of  Ducal 
society). 

"That  is  certainly  true." 

"But  there  may  be  nice  people  hereabouts  of 
whom  I  never  heard." 

"There  is  one,  at  all  events." 

"Ah!  Now  I  go  on.  If  I  were  a  man  I  should 
not  bother  about  being  a  prince " 

"I  do  not." 

"Good!  I  should  think  of  my  happiness — and 
hers." 

"God  bless  you,  little   Mother." 

"Now  I  will  ask  questions  .  .  .  you  are  go- 
ing alone.  Is  she  to  meet  you  somewhere,  to  be 
married  to  you  there?  Tell  me.  I  daresay  you 
think  I  ought  not  to  know,  so  that  I  may  not  be 
scolded  when  it  is  known.  But  I  do  not  care.  I 
shall  take  your  part." 

"I  should  not  do  that  Avithout  telling  my  father, 
and  the  Duke,  too.      I  am  not  doing  it." 

The  princess  looked  plainly  disappointed. 

"Well,"  she  said  cooly,  "it  will  save  a  lot  of 
trouble." 

"I  am  not  afraid  of  trouble — that  sort  of 
trouble.  But,  I  assure  you  I  am  not  getting  mar- 
ried, nor  have  I  the  least  intention  of  seeing  again 
the  lady  of  whom  you  speak." 

"I  am  absolutely  certain  you  love  her." 

"Are  you?     You  are  a  very  wise  lady." 


64  THE  TIDEWAY 

"No.  Not  at  all  wise.  But  I  know  that.  You 
are  quite  changed." 

"For  the  worse?" 

"Neither  better  nor  worse.  Different.  Alto- 
gether different.  You  are  not  in  love  with  a  dead 
lady?" 

"Good  gracious!  A  dead  lady?" 

''Juana  la  Eoca." 

Anton  literally  started,  though  he  laughed. 

"Ah!  Since  that  picture  appeared  in  your 
rooms  I  noted  the  difference,"  declared  his  mother. 
"And  haven't  I  seen  you  staring  at  it?  And  with 
what  a  look!  If  Juana's  husband  were  alive  you 
would  be  capable  of  killing  him." 

"Don't  say  that,  Mother.      It  is  horrible." 

She  was  again  astounded.  A  look  of  real  hor- 
ror had  darkled  in  his  eyes — and  how  could  any 
young  man  be  in  danger  of  wishing  to  kill  Charles 
V's  father!  Yet  she  knew  she  had  touched  near 
a  tragedy. 

"How,"  she  asked  abruptly,  "did  you  find  her?" 

|Tind  her?" 

"Yes,  Juana.  It  is  a  priceless  picture.  Where 
did  you  find  it?" 

"I  did  not  find  it." 

"Then  you  did  not  buy  It." 

"No." 

"Then  she  gave  it  to  you." 

"She?" 

"Yes.  She.  She.^'  And  the  princess  tri- 
umphed. 

"She  must,"  she  declared,  "be  at  all  events  rich. 
That  portrait  is  worth  half  the  Duchess's  dia- 
monds." 

"I   think   so,   too." 

"So  your  lady  is  rich.  Ah,  Anton!  not,  not,  not 
a  Jew's  daughter?" 


THE  LADY  OF  THE  DUNESHORE    6s 

"Certainly  not,''  he  answered  with  conviction. 
"I  believe  her  father  was  a  Scottish  nobleman." 

"You  believe.     Didn't  she  tell  you?" 

"Certainly  not.  And  I  may  be  wrong,  but  I 
think  I  am  right." 

The  ground  he  had  to  go  upon  was  this.  She 
had  told  him  her  name  was  Sylvia  Carstairs;  that 
she  had  married  one  Garioch,  that  she  had  neither 
father,  mother,  brother  nor  sister.  He  had  found, 
by  looking  It  up  In  an  English  Peerage,  that  there 
was  a  Scottish  Earl  of  Solway,  the  present  Earl  a 
young  man,  who  had  succeeded  a  distant  cousin 
some  five  years  since.  That  cousin  had  died  a 
widower  and  had  left  one  only  child.  Lady  Sylvia 
Carstairs.  Lady  Sylvia  had  married,  three  years 
after  her  father's  death,  a  Mr.  David  Garioch,  of 
Duners,  In  Shetland. 

To  Anton  Is  seemed  a  certainty. 

"And  do  you  tell  me,"  asked  the  princess,  "that 
this  Scottish  nobleman's  daughter  Is  living  here  in 
Helsing?" 

"I  told  you  nothing  about  it.  But  it  is  nearly 
true — not  quite,  for  she  does  not  live  in  Helsing." 

"But  near?" 

"Yes." 

"And  she  bears  no  title." 

"She  bears  none." 

"Then  she  cannot  be  a  Duke's,  a  Marquis's,  or  an 
Earl's  daughter." 

"No?" 

"I  should  like  to  shake  the  truth  out  of  you." 

"You  can  try.  But  It  will  not  be  shaken  out. 
That  which  Is  well  fixed  In  doesn't  get  shaken  out  I" 

"Anton,  a  Scottish  nobleman's  daughter  is  en- 
tirely respectable,  though  not  princely " 

"She  Is  entirely  respectable." 

"Well,  I  shall  think  It  all  out.     And  I  shall  meet 


66  THE  TIDEWAY 

her.  Scottish  nobleman's  daughters  can't  live  un- 
discovered in  places  like  Helsing." 

"I  am  sure  you  will  not  meet  her.  And  she 
doesn't  live  in  Helsing." 

"We  shall  see." 


On  the  very  day  of  her  son's  departure,  not  two 
hours  after  he  had  gone,  the  Princess's  lady  in  wait- 
ing came  to  her  and  said: 

"Highness,  there  is  a  cabman,  and  he  has  a  small 
box.  He  says  it  contains  something  that  he  thinks 
he  should  give  to  Prince  Anton.  Something  found 
in  his  cab." 

"I  will  see  the  man.     Let  them  bring  him  here." 

"Here,   Highness?" 

"Yes,  here.  And  when  they  bring  him  up,  I  will 
see  him  alone." 

Presently  the  cabman  appeared,  much  abashed  at 
finding  himself  in  a  saloon  of  Prince  Rudolph's 
palace — which  was  only  a  wing  of  the  Duke's. 

The  Princess  received  him  very  graciously,  and 
asked  what  he  had  found. 

"Highness,"  he  said  nicely,  "I  have  been  ill 
..."  and  he  paused  apologetically. 

"Never  mind.     One  is  not  ill  on  purpose." 

"No,  Highness.  I  lost  nearly  a  week's  work  by 
it.  I  was  taken  ill  the  day  I  went  to  fetch  a  picture 
for  His  Highness  Prince  Anton " 

"Where  from?"  inquired  the  Princess  carelessly. 

"From  the   Chalet  Ferdinand,   Highness.     And 


"Oh,  the  Chalet  Ferdinand,"  interupted  the 
Princess,  more  carelessly  (she  had  never  heard  of 
it),  "on  the  St.  Hubert  road." 

"Forgive  me.  Highness.       No.       In  the  North 


THE  LADY  OF  THE  DUNES  HO  RE    67 

Suburb,  near  the  Dunes;  the  last  house  toward  the 
dunes." 

"Ah,  yes.  Of  course.  The  house  where  the 
Herr  Professor  of  Painting  lives — who  has  a  glass 
eye.     A  worthy  man." 

"I  am  sure  so.  Though  I  had  never  heard  of 
him " 

"Not!"   (nor  had  she). 

"No,  Highness.  But  the  note  was  not  to  the 
Herr  Professer " 

"To  the  Frau  Professor  probably." 

"No  doubt — 'Madame  Petersen';  that  was  on 
the  note.     There  was  no  answer." 

The  cabman  was  now  allowed  to  go  on  with 
much  less  interruption.  In  fact  her  Highness 
slightly  hurried  him. 

"There  would  naturally  be  no  reply.  The  note 
was  merely  an  authorization  to  deliver  ti,e  picture 
to  you — the  bearer.  You  brought  the  pic  ure  here, 
and  afterward  unfortunately  became  ill." 

"Yes,  Highness.  That  is  why  I  did  not  clean 
out  or  examine  my  cab  before.  It  is  my  own  cab. 
Highness,  and  did  not  go  out  while  I  was  ill.  To- 
day I  cleaned  it.  And  I  found  this.  It  is  doubt- 
less a  piece  of  the  frame  of  the  picture.  I  hope 
Her  Highness  will  not  think  I  had  handled  the 
picture  carelessly " 

"Far  from  it.  It  is  a  thing  that  happens 
easily." 

She  spoke  most  graciously,  and  most  gracious 
was  her  smile  as  she  held  out  her  hand  for  the  little 
box  the  man  was  holding. 

"Oh  yes,"  she  said,  after  opening  it,  "it  is  cer- 
tainly a  little  bit  of  the  frame;  quite  a  small  bit. 
It  is  easy  to  understand  how  such  a  small  piece 
might  get  knocked  off.  Perhaps  It  had  been 
knocked  oft  before  and  stuck  on  again." 


68  THE  TIDEWAY 

"I  think  so,  Highness."  He  did  not  think  so, 
nor  did  the  Princess. 

Then  she  gave  the  man  ten  marks,  and  he 
thought  her  a  most  excellent  princess,  having  half 
expected  a  wigging,  either  for  having  knocked  a 
bit  off  the  frame,  or  for  not  having  brought  it 
sooner. 

That  afternoon  her  Highness  roundly  accused 
her  lady  in  waiting  of  having  a  cold  in  her  head, 
and  would  take  no  denial. 

"You  certainly  have  a  cold  in  your  head,"  she 
insisted.  "Your  dear  old  nose  is  red,  and  so  are 
your  eyes;  you  never  cry,  so  you  must  have  a  cold. 
Also  you  sneezed  at  luncheon " 

"I  shook  out  too  much  pepper;  the  top  of  the 
pepper-box " 

"That  would  not  make  your  nose  red.  You 
have  a  cold.  And  I  shall  drive  alone.  You  can 
go  to  bed." 

The  Grafin  loved  to  go  to  bed,  with  a  hot  bottle 
and  a  novel;  and  she  succumbed.  Princess  Rudolf 
drove  out  alone. 

"To  the  North  Suburb,"  she  told  the  footman, 
who  transmitted  the  order  to  the  coachman,  "the 
Chalet  Ferdinand,  please.  It  is  the  last  house 
toward  the  dunes. 

At  the  Chalet  she  was  told  that  Madame  Peter- 
sen was  in;  and  in  two  minutes  she  was  in  that 
lady's  drawing-room. 

"I  will  go  and  tell  Madame,"  said  Elsa,  curt- 
seying for  the  fourth  time  in  two  minutes.  And 
her  Highness  was  left  alone. 

"The  picture,"  she  told  herself,  "hung  there. 
There  is  a  gap  there." 

And  instantly  she  brought  out  of  her  muff  the 
broken  off  bit  of  frame  and  dropped  it  into  a  tall 
porcelain  vase  that  stood  close  to  the  wall,  under 


THE  LADY  OF  THE  DUNESHORE    69 

the  gap,  and  behind  a  big  sofa  that  stood  not  many 
inches  out  from  the  wall. 

Then  she  had  time  to  admire  the  room. 

"She  has  taste,  Madame  Petersen,"  she  decided, 
"and  money,  too.  Also  she  knows  how  to  make 
herself  comfortable." 

The  very  bleak  view  over  the  empty  and  desolate 
dunes,  through  the  well-curtained  windows,  only 
accentuated  the  warm  comfort  of  the  large  pleasant 
room. 

Then  the  door  opened  and  Madame  Petersen 
came  in.  A  pale  yellow  beam  of  watery  sunlight 
lit  up  her  figure  for  a  moment  as  she  stood  near  the 
door. 

"Yes,"  thought  the  princess,  "she  Is  quite  beauti- 
ful.    And  'born' ;  oh,  ever  so  much  born." 

The  line  of  pallid  sunlight  was  only  between  one 
window  and  the  door,  and  In  a  moment  the  girl 
had  advanced  out  of  it. 

"I  am  the  Princess  Rudolf,"  said  her  guest,  smil- 
ing, "the  mother  of  Prince  Anton,  whom  you 
know." 

Madame  Petersen  curtseyed,  but  the  Princess 
had  come  a  step  nearer  as  she  spoke,  and  had  taken 
her  hand,  with  a  sort  of  abrupt  uplift. 

"I  have  seen  him  once,"  said  the  girl,  without 
the  smallest  sign  of  embarrassment. 

"He  has  gone  away,"  said  the  Princess,  seating 
herself  with  a  little  gesture  that  was  half  an  an- 
nouncement that  she  wished  to  sit,  and  half  a  per- 
mission to  her  hostess  to  sit  also.  In  order  to  sit 
down  Ida  did  not  at  all  turn  her  face  away,  though 
she  could  easily  have  done  so;  the  Princess  could 
not  perceive  either  that  Madame  was  surprised  to 
hear  of  the  Prince's  departure,  or  that  she  had  been 
aware  of  it. 


70  THE  TIDEWAY 

"Yes,"  Princess  Rudolf  repeated,  "he  is  gone. 
He  is  always  traveling." 

"His  Highness  told  me  that  he  is  a  sailor." 

"Oh  yes.  But  he  has  not  gone  on  a  cruise  this 
time.    He  has  simply  gone  away — traveling." 

The  girl  paused  a  moment,  and  then  asked  quiet- 

"Did  he  tell  your  Highness  he  had  been  here?" 

"Oh  no !  He  never  mentioned  your  name,  nor 
where  you  lived — I  found  out  both  by  accident — 
after  he  had  gone  away.  Of  course,  you  are  won- 
dering what  brings  me  here — " 

"It  is,  of  course,  an  honor  I  could  not  have  ex- 
pected.     I  am  entirely  unknown  here." 

"Except  to  Prince  Anton,"  suggested  his  mother, 
smiling. 

"To  him  also  I  am  very  little  known." 

Perhaps  the  Princess  was  wondering  how  they 
had  become  known  to  each  other  at  all;  but  she 
betrayed  no  curiosity  either  by  word  or  look.  Per- 
haps Madame  Petersen  was  wondering  if  she 
should  explain — if  so,  she  had  not  yet  made  up  her 
mind. 

"I  wish,"  said  Princess  Rudolf  abruptly,  "he  had 
not  gone  away."  ("She  blames  me  for  it," 
thought  the  girl.) 

"He  had  so  recently  come  home,"  added  his 
mother.  "I  hoped  to  keep  him  quite  a  long  time. 
He  had  been  so  long  away;  and,  Madame,  he  is 
very  dear  to  me." 

The  words  were  very  gently  spoken,  and  Ida 
perceived  at  once  that  she  was  not  being 
scolded. 

"Ah,  I  can  understand  that — he  is  your  son," 
she  said  simply. 

"I  have  five  sons.  But  he  is  the  only  one  who 
never  stays  at  home." 


THE  LADY  OF  THE  DUNESHORE    71 

("And  the  one  she  would  like  best  to  have  at 
home,"  thought  Ida.) 

"It  is  sad  for  your  Highness.  If  I  may  say  so, 
I  am  very  sorry  for  your  sake  that  Prince  Anton 
should  have  gone  away,"  she  said  aloud. 

"Only  for  my  sake!" 

"I  do  not  think  your  Highness  quite  understands. 
I  met  Prince  Anton  once — by  accident.  We  should 
not  have  met  again." 

("That,"  thought  Princess  Rudolf,  "is  all  you 
know  about  it.")      But,  smiling,  she  said  aloud: 

"Fortunate    accidents   repeat   themselves." 

"That  accident  would  not  have  repeated  itself," 
said  the  girl,  not  smiling. 

("She  is  sure  of  herself.  She  is  not  a  nobody," 
thought  the  Princess.  "It  is  a  good  thing  I  did  not 
come  to  sit  upon  her,  it  wouldn't  have  been  easy.") 

"I  cannot,"  she  said  aloud,  impulsively,  "under- 
stand why  Anton  went  away.  I  should  have 
stayed." 

To  this  Madame  Petersen  attempted  no  reply 
whatever.  A  very  slight  flush  came  over  her 
lovely  face,  but  it  was  certainly  no  blush  of  shame 
or  guilt. 

"Come,"  cried  Anton's  mother.  "You  are  not 
going  to  tell  me,  his  mother,  that  you  are  glad  he 
has  gone!" 

"To  Prince  Anton's  mother  I  should  say  nothing 
about  it,  but  since  she  asks  me  I  will  say  that  I  am 
not  sorry.  I  am'  neither  glad  nor  sorry.  Can 
your  Highness  not  understand  that,  had  he  re- 
mained, we  should  not  have  met  again?  He  would 
not  have  sought  me,  and  had  he  done  so  I  should 
have  gone  away.  I  think  a  little  time  ago  your 
Highness  was  about  to  explain  to  me  why  you  have 
so  very  greatly  honored  me  by  this  visit." 

"Yes.      I  came  because  a  little  bit  of  the  frame 


72  THE  TIDEWAY 

of  the  picture  of  Juana  la  Loca  is,  I  find,  broken 
off.  It  seems  to  be  quite  a  new  fracture.  The 
frame  itself  is  contemporary  with  the  picture,  and, 
like  it,  nearly  priceless.  It  would  be  a  great  pity 
to  mend  it  with  a  new  piece — if  the  broken  piece 
could  possibly  be  found.  As  soon  as  I  had  found 
out  your  name  and  address  (it  was  only  to-day)  I 
resolved  to  come  myself  and  ask  if  by  any  chance 
the  fragment  was  here.  The  break  might  so  easily 
have  happened  during  the  removal  of  the  portrait 
from  the  wall." 

"If  so  I  think  my  servant  would  have  found  the 
fragment  and  have  told  me.     But  I  will  look  now." 

She  rose  at  once,  and  so  did  the  Princess. 

"Do  let  me  help  you,"  she  said  cheerfully. 

"The  portrait  hung  there,"  said  Madame  Peter- 
sen, "on  that  wall  over  the  sofa." 

She  drew  the  sofa,  which  ran  easily  on  excellent 
casters,  forward;  and  bent  down  to  search.  The 
floor  was  thickly  carpeted  up  to  the  wall.  Of 
course  she  found  nothing. 

"Oh,  how  awkward  I  am,"  cried  the  princess, 
who  had  also  come  behind  the  sofa,  and  was  grop- 
ing about.  She  had  nearly  overturned  the  tall  por- 
celain vase,  but  saved  it. 

"Something  rattled,"  said  Ida,  and  she  shook  the 
vase  again,  herself. 

"There  it  is,"  she  announced,  looking  down  into 
the  vase.  "We  must  turn  it  upside  down,"  which 
she  did,  and  the  'piece  of  frame'  fell  out  upon  the 
sofa. 

VI 

"That,"  said  Princess  Rudolf,  "is  exactly  the 
missing  bit.  Either  it  fell  in  there,  or  somebody 
dropped  it  in  on  purpose." 


THE  LADY  OF  THE  DUNES  HO  RE    73 

"The  gardener  and  another  man  took  the  picture 
down.  Possibly  they  broke  the  piece  off,  and  were 
afraid  to  confess." 

"Perhaps  it  was  the  cabman." 

Ida  noted  shrewdly  that  her  Highness  knew  the 
picture  had  been  fetched  away  in  a  cab,  but  she  only 
said: 

"No.  The  picture  was  ready  for  him  when  he 
came.     I  told  Prince  Anton  it  should  be  ready." 

"If  anyone  had  given  me  so  splendid  a  present  I 
should  have  come  for  it  myself." 

"It  did  not  seem  to  me  in  the  least  a  splendid 
present.  I  gave  quite  a  moderate  sum  for  it. 
Prince  Anton  said  it  was  an  original,  and  valuable 


"So  you  gave  it  to  him!" 

"No,  not  at  all  for  that  reason;  simply  because 
I  wished  it  to  go  away,  and  he  admired  it." 

("I  wonder,"  thought  the  Princess,  "why  she 
suddenly  wished  to  be  rid  of  it?  Did  she  really, 
or  was  it  only  as  an  excuse  for  giving  it  to  Anton? 
I  must  decide  that.")  Then  aloud  she  said,  lightly, 
and  with  a  smile : 

"I  suppose,  since  you  bought  it,  that  you  also 
admired  it  then?" 

"Yes.  I  thought  it  a  fine  portrait,  and  very  in- 
teresting. But  I  did  not  know  of  whom  it  was  a 
portrait." 

"Ah!  Anton  knows  all  those  sort  of  things — 
besides  he  is  descended  from  her;  I  suppose  he  told 
you." 

"He  did  not  tell  me  he  was  descended  from  Juana 
la  LocaJ" 

("He  told  her,"  thought  the  Princess,  "it  was 
Juana's  portrait,  and  he  told  her  Juana's  story. 
Then  she  wanted  to  get  rid  of  it.  Only  another 
mystery.") 


74  THE  TIDEWAY 

"He  certainly,"  she  declared  aloud,  "ought  not 
to  have  sent  a  cabman  to  fetch  such  a  treasure. 
He  ought  to  have  fetched  it  himself." 

"I  cannot  see  that  he  ought,"  said  Madame 
Petersen   coolly. 

"He  should  have  seen  that  he  ought.  I  cannot 
understand  such  a  failure  of  courtesy  in  him.  He 
is  the  most  courteous  young  man  I  know." 

"I  only  saw  him  once  in  my  life,  but  he  gave  me 
the  impression  of  being  all  that  your  Highness 
says." 

They  had  not  sat  down  again,  but  were  now 
standing  up  on  the  big  fur  rug  in  front  of  the  log 
fire.  The  Princess  was  watching  Madame  Peter- 
sen's beautiful  face  in  the  glass;  the  girl's  eyes  were 
bent  on  the  logs. 

("She  shall  look  up,"  thought  Princess  Rudolf.) 
And  half  aloud  she  said: 

"You  gave  him  a  splendid  present;  just  of  the 
sort  he  most  appreciates;  I  simply  cannot  under- 
stand his  not  coming  to  take  it  safe  home  himself — 
unless  .  .  ."  She  paused  an  instant,  but  Ida  did 
not  look  up.  Then  the  Princess  added:  "... 
Unless  he  had  been  forbidden  to  come  himself." 

"Is  it,"  asked  Madame  Petersen,  looking  up  and 
meeting  the  Princess's  eyes  in  the  glass,  "is  it  neces- 
sary that  your  Highness  should  understand?" 

Princess  Rudolf  was  fifty-five  years  old,  but  no 
human  being  had  ever  asked  her  such  a  question  be- 
fore. It  was  as  if  someone  had  suddenly  opened 
a  window  and  let  in  a  current  of  remarkably  fresh 
air;  but  she  had  none  of  the  German  abhorrence 
of  fresh  air,  and  was  not  terrified.  In  fact  she 
rather  liked  it.  She  was  quite  honest  enough,  and 
quite  shrewd  enough  to  be  aware  that  the  girl  was 
not  impertinent — she  merely  did  not  intend  to  sub- 
mit to  impertinence. 


THE  LADY  OF  THE  DUNES  HO  RE    75 

("Only  I  did  not  come  to  be  impertinent — for  so 
very  different  a  purpose!"  she  half  expostulated, 
but  without  a  word.) 

"Come,  my  dear,"  she  said,  smiling  out  of  eyes 
that  (for  all  her  little  traps  and  schemings)  were 
very  honest  eyes,  and  quite  rarely  kind,  "I  will 
frankly  admit  that  it  is  not  necessary  that  I  should 
understand  anything  you  do  not  choose  to  let  me 
understand." 

("I  believe,"  thought  Ida,  "she  is  simply  friend- 
ly-queer and  quaint,  but  ever  so  friendly.")  And 
the  proud,  grave  girl  thawed  instantly. 

"Madame,"  she  said,  "I  beg  your  pardon — you 
made  me  forget — your  Highness.  If  you  had 
asked  me,"  and  she  laughed,  "plump  out,  ten  min- 
utes ago,  I  should  have  answered  straightfor- 
wardly. But  roundabout  questions  get  all  they  de- 
serve when  they  receive  roundabout  answers — or 
none.  Was  Prince  Anton  forbidden  to  come  here 
again  to  take  away  his  picture?     Practically  yes." 

"I  am  sure  Anton  had  deserved  no  such  prohibi- 
tion," cried  his  mother  eagerly. 

"/  am  sure  you  know  him  well  enough  to  be  sure 
of  what  you  say.  But  it  was  no  question  of  desert. 
He  simply  asked  what  was  my  wish;  and  I  told 
him." 

"Not  to  come?" 

"Not  to  come." 

Ida  waited  a  moment  and  opened  another  win- 
dow. 

"I  feel  sure,"  she  said,  very  quietly,  "that  If  you 
had  asked  hhn  was  it  his  wish  that  you  should  come 
— he  would  have  answered  No." 

"You  are  very  direct,"  the  Princess  remarked 
without  annoyance,  and  again  smiling. 

"I  thought  you  demanded  directness." 

"Anyway,  I  do  not  mind  it.      But  I  may  say  that 


76  THE  TIDEWAY 

you  are  wrong.  Had  Anton  known  that  I  thought 
of  coming  to  you,  and  known  why  I  should  wish  to 
come,  he  would  have  said,  'Go  and  God  bless 
you.'" 

Ida  shook  her  head. 

"Of  course,"  added  Princess  Rudolf,  "he  could 
not  know.  He  was  clearly  resolved  to  tell  me 
nothing  about  you — not  even  your  name,  nor  where 
you  lived.     He  has  broken  no  faith  with  you " 

"I  am  sure  he  would  not." 

("Ah,  ha!  my  dear.  So  you  did  forbid  him  to 
tell  anyone  anything  about  you!"  thought  Anton's 
mother.) 

"I  simply  knew  that  someone  had  given  him  that 
picture,"  she  went  on,  "and  I  found  out  after  he 
had  gone  whence,  and  from  whom  it  came.  So  / 
came." 

Ida's  lip  did  not  move,  but  she  looked  up,  and 
her  eyes  certainly  asked  "Why?" 

''Because,"  said  the  Princess,  "I  was  curious.  I 
wanted  to  know  you.  Yes,  and  to  know  what  you 
were  like.  Please  understand — I  do  know  my  son. 
He  is  a  very  simple  person,  but  he  is  a  prince,  and 
he  is  not  the  sort  of  young  man  to  whom  anybody 
dare  offer  a  splendid  gift;  I  cannot  imagine  his 
accepting  such  a  gift  from  anyone  he  did  not  recog- 
nize as  his  equal " 

"I  certainly  am  not  a  princess— " 

"(I  know  nothing  about  that.  I  should  cer- 
tainly believe  you  if  you  said  you  zvere  one.)  I 
knew  Anton  too  well  to  doubt  the  sort  of  person 
you  must  be.  I  simply  wanted  to  see — and  share. 
I  came  without  the  least  misgiving.  You  under- 
stand?" 

"Yes,  I  understand." 

"Anton  would  have  approved,  for  he  would 
know  I  could  only  want  to  see  you  in  order  to — be 


THE  LADY  OF  THE  DUNESHORE    77 

friends  with  you.  He  will  approve;  for,  of  course, 
I  shall  tell  him  1  have  been  here." 

"I  hope  you  will  not." 

"Why?" 

"Because  I  would  wish  that  nothing  should  keep 
the  thought  of  me  in  his  mind.  Neither  do  I  wish 
to  encourage  the  thought  of  him  in  mine." 

"Ah!  that  is  cowardly.  Just  because  he  is  a 
prince !" 

The  girl  looked  straight  at  the  prince's  mother, 
and  said  with  remarkable  decision: 

"I  simply  never  thought  of  it.  It  had  nothing 
in  the  world  to  do  with  it." 

("She  is  as  proud,"  thought  the  Princess,  "as 
proud  as  the  devil.")  But  she  absolutely  believed 
her,   and  was  the  more  intriguee. 

"It  is  not  because  you  are  a  princess,"  the  girl 
went  on,  "that  I  do  not  accept  the  friendship  you 
come  and  offer;  though  that  is  different.  You  are 
of  the  Court  here,  that  I  cannot  be." 

"Is  that  quite  true?" 

"I  am  Madame  Petersen " 

"Is  that  quite  true?" 

The  girl  turned  on  her  a  look  that  was  full  of  a 
sudden  cold  dignity,  and  the  Princess  thought  she 
had  made  a  mistake — that  Petersen  must  really  be 
her  present  name. 

"You  may  certainly  be  Madame  Petersen,"  she 
said  laughing,  "but  you  might  also  be  the  daughter 
of — say,  a  Scottish  nobleman." 

"Or  of  the  Grand  Lama  of  Thibet,"  retorted 
Ida,  without  turning  a  hair. 

"Hardly,  my  dear.  The  Grand  Lama  of  Thibet 
is  a  monk." 

"Oh  is  he?  Yes.  I  forgot.  Anyway,  I  can- 
not be  of  your  Court  here,  and  I  iv'iU  not  be.  Will 
you  be  angry  if  I  tell  you  something?" 


78  THE  TIDEWAY 

"No.      I  like  being  told  things." 

Neither  of  them  could  help  laughing — it  was  so 
patently  the  fact. 

"Perhaps,  though,  you  will  not  like  this.  Un- 
less you  promise  to  ignore  me,  to  leave  me  alone, 
I  shall  go  away." 

"Out  of  the   room!" 

"Further.  Out  of  this  place.  I  came  to  this 
place  to  be  alone ;  and  I  confess  I  find  it  lonely. 
Nevertheless  I  intend  to  go  away  unless  your  High- 
ness promises  to  leave  me  altogether  alone." 

"Because  I  am  a  princess!"  cried  her  guest — not 
believing  it. 

"Not  in  the  least.  Because  you  are  the  mother 
of  that  particular  prince.  You  might  be  the 
mother  of  the  Prince  of  Wales,  and  if  you  were  so 
kind  as  to  offer  me  your  friendship  I  should  con- 
sent. Pm  not  particularly  frightened  of  prin- 
cesses." 

("She  is  a  British  subject  anyway,"  thought 
Princess  Rudolf,  "her  acme  of  royalty  is  ths  Prince 
of  Wales'  mother.") 

"What  is  there  objectionable  in  the  particular 
prince  of  whom  I  am  the  mother?" 

"Nothing.  You  tell  me  all  good  of  him,  and  I 
am  delighted  to  believe  it — I  do  believe  it,  though 
I  know  almost  nothing  of  him.  Must  I  tell  you 
again  that  I  have  seen  him  once,  and  that  not  for 
long."    ^ 

"I  think  he  must  have  seen  you  more  than  once." 

"No.  He  has  only  seen  me  once  too.  Are  you 
trying  to  force  me  to  explain  why  I  am  sure  we 
shall  not  meet  again,  and  why  I  neither  wish  to  be 
specially  reminded  of  him  nor  that  he  should  be 
reminded  of  me?" 

"He  will  need  no  reminder.  He  intends  to 
marry  you." 


THE  LADY  OF  THE  DUNESHORE    79 

"I  am  sure,"  the  girl  answered  with  calm  con- 
viction, "he  did  not  say  so,  nor  hint  it  either." 

"He  did  neither.  Nevertheless  I  know  that  it 
IS  so. 

"And  I  know,"  retorted  Ida,  "that  it  is  impos- 
sible." 

"What  do  you  mean?"  cried  the  Princess,  with 
a  sudden  most  chilly  qualm.  "He  is  not  married 
already!" 

She  certainly  knew  her  son.  She  did  not  believe 
he  would  have  secrets  from  her.  Yet  there  was 
plainly  a  mystery.  He  had  gone  away  because  he 
was  in  love,  and  the  girl  he  loved  was  here.  Then 
he  had  been  away,  off  and  on,  for  years.     Oh  dear! 

"Married,  no,"  said  Ida  a  little  too  positively 
for  a  lady  supposed  to  know  so  very  little  about 
him,  "you  would  know  if  he  were  married." 

"Certainly  I  should.  But  why,  then,  is  it  impos- 
sible he  should  marry  you?  You  say  it  is  not  be- 
cause he  is  a  prince." 

Madame  Petersen  did  not  answer.  Her  hand, 
with  many  rings  upon  it,  and  very  splendid  rings, 
lay  now  upon  the  chimneypiece.  She  raised  the 
other  hand  and  took  them  all  off,  but  one. 


VII 

"But,"  said  the  Princess  in  a  low  voice,  "I  don't 
know  why,  1  felt  sure  you  were  a  widow." 

"I  am  not.  And  the  man  I  married  is  younger 
than  your  son,  and  perfectly  well." 

"Oh,  my  dear!  Oh,  my  dear!"  And  the  kind, 
queer,  indiscreet,  romanceful  elderly  woman's  voice 
was  all  sympathy  and  respect.  She  had  not  a  doubt 
of  the  girl,  and  the  girl  felt  it  instantly.  Princess 
Rudolf's   eyes   brimmed,    she   could   not   have   said 


8o  THE  TIDEWAY 

» 

why,  only  she  felt  herself  close,  close  to  a  great 
pain  and  (she  was  sure)   a  great  wrong. 

'Oh,  my  dear!"  she  cried,  almost  with  a  sob. 
"You  need  me.  You  need  a  friend,  and  something 
solid  (like  me;  you  see  how  solid  I  am!)  to  lean 
upon.      Don't  send  me  off.      Don't  send  me  off." 

"I  have  told  you  why." 

"I  promise  never  to  tell  him." 

"No.  But  I  do  not  want  to  remember  him 
either — except  as  the  pleasant,  courteous  guest  of 
one  afternoon.  I  want  him  to  fade.  I  only  saw 
him  once,  and  he  will  fade.      ." 

("Not  if  I  know  it,"  thought  the  Princess, 
vehemently. ) 

"Really,"  the  girl  ended,  "there  is  no  more  to 
say  about  it.  I  like  you — there.  You  are  not 
accustomed  to  be  told  that — " 

"No   indeed.     Alas,   no." 

"Well,  I  tell  It  to  you.  I  do  like  you.  In  spite 
of — in  spite  of  your  ways.  And  I  should  like  well 
to  have  your  friendship — you  are  absolutely  kind. 
But  I  intend  to  go  away." 

"That,"  protested  the  Princess,  "would  be 
wicked." 

"No.  Except  that  I  loathe  him  I  am  not 
wicked." 

"If  you  loathe  him,  he  deserves  It,"  declared  the 
Princess  with  robust  certainty. 

"See  now!  While  you  angled  and  maneuvered  I 
would  tell  you  nothing.      Now  I  will  tell  you " 

It  was  quite  Impossible  for  the  Princess  to  dissem- 
ble her  rapture  of  anticipation. 

("She  is  queer,"  thought  Ida,  "is  she  quite,  quite 
a  lady?")     Nevertheless  she  went  on. 

"We  had  been  married  a  little  over  a  month,  and 
he  imagined  himself  still  in  love.  But  he  was  a 
coward,  and  I  had  always  thought  him  brave,  andi 


THE  LADY  OF  THE  DUNESHORE    8i 

had  always  bent  down  and  worshipped  bravery. 
Because  he  was  afraid  for  his  own  life  he  (as  he 
thought)  killed  me.     That  is  all." 

"All!"  cried  the  Princess,  "isn't  it  enough?" 

"That,"  said  Ida,  who  understood  perfectly,  "is 
all  I  am  going  to  tell  you." 

A  genuine  old  tear  was  creeping  down  the  Prin- 
cess's nose — quite  as  genuine  as  her  incurable 
curiosity. 

"I  loathe,"  whispered  the  girl,  shivering,  "the 
very  name  of  him."  She  had  grown  horribly  pale, 
and  the  old  awful  look  had  darkened  across  her 
ashen  face.  But  for  the  moment  it  was  the  Princess 
who  was  looking  down  into  the  fire — with  greedily 
listening  eyes.  She  did  not  in  the  least  realize 
that  for  an  hour  she  had  been  holding  on  a  rack  a 
very  sensitive  creature,  whose  pride  and  resistance 
had  been  kept  at  a  sharp  tension,  who  for  several 
days  before  had  been  living  on  another  rack,  alone, 
who  for  many  months — nearly  two  whole  years — 
had  been  fighting  alone  a  losing  fight  against  a  hor- 
rible nightmare  of  memory. 

The  Princess  only  heard  her  say  with  horror: 

"I  loathe  the  very  name  of  him." 

And,  afraid  to  lift  her  inquisitive  glance,  she  said 
innocently,  "Why  not  lay  it  aside?" 

Ida  laughed,  and  at  that  sound  the  Princess  did 
indeed  look  up,  horrified.  And  the  beautiful  slim 
figure  collapsed  beside  her. 


VIII 

"Is  there,"  asked  the  Princess,  "a  doctor  any- 
where near  here — quite  near?" 

"There  is.  Highness,"  Madame  Petersen's  maid 
replied,  "the  Herr  Doctor  at  the  small  house  with 


82  THE   TIDEWAY 

yellow  shutters.     They  say  he  is  clever.     He  also 
limps." 

"Send  at  once  for  him.  Tell  them  to  take  my 
carriage  for  him,  let  them  bring  him  back  in  it.  If 
he  is  not  in,  say  that  they  are  to  drive  at  once  to 
the  Allerheiligen  hospital  and  bring  back  a  doctor." 

The  woman  curtseyed  and  went  off  at  once;  she 
almost  hoped  the  Herr  Doctor  would  be  out  so  that 
the  Princess's  carriage  might  have  to  fetch  another 
out  from  Helsing  for  her  mistress.  But  he  was  not 
out,  and  in  ten  minutes  he  had  arrived — a  small, 
white-faced  old  man,  with,  as  the  maid  had  said,  a 
heavy  limp.  The  Princess  received  him  in  Madame 
Petersen's  dressing-room,  a  large  room,  nearly  as 
beautifully  furnished  as  the  drawing-room  under  it, 
and  opening  into  the  actual  sleeping  room,  which  was 
smaller.  By  that  time  they  had  got  the  patient  to 
bed. 

*'I  am  so  glad  you  were  in,  and  were  able  to  come 
at  once,"  said  the  Princess  in  English. 

*'I  beg  your  Highness's  pardon,"  said  the  little 
man,  putting  a  colorless  hand  upto  his  ear. 

("Ah,  ha!  So  you're  a  little  deaf,  and  you  do 
not  understand  English,"  thought  Princess  Rudolf; 
"that  is  very  suitable.") 

Through  the  open  door  into  the  next  room  the 
voice  of  the  poor  sick  lady  could  be  heard  moaning 
and  chattering  incoherently — in  English. 

"I  only  said,"  observed  the  Princess,  very  gra- 
ciously, and  speaking  louder,  in  German,  "that  I  was 
so  glad  you  had  kindly  come  at  once.  I  fear 
Madame  Petersen  is,  or  is  going  to  be,  very  ill.  She 
fainted — quite  dead  away;  wholly  collapsed — quar- 
ter of  an  hour  ago,  downstairs  in  her  drawing-room 
at  my  side.  And  she  did  not  recover  consciousness, 
but  only  started  moaning  and  talking  wanderingly. 
She  is  very  young;  a  very  young  widow,  and  has  had 


THE  LADY  OF  THE  DUNESHORE    83 

great  trouble.  The  loss  of  her  husband  was  very 
sudden  and  attended  by  terrible  circumstances. 
Come  to  her." 

After  a  few  minutes  the  doctor  and  the  princess 
came  out  together  into  the  dressing-room. 

"Brain-fever,"  he  declared,  without  hesitation, 
"a  very  delicate  organization  much  overtaxed.  I 
should  say  there  has  been  long  and  grievous  mental 
strain.      Collapse  was  inevitable." 

"I  am  sure  you  are  right.' 

The  little  Herr  Doctor  knew  very  well  he  was 
right — he  always  knew  that.  But  the  lady  who  told 
him  so  now  was  the  wife  of  his  Sovereign's  brother, 
and  he  did  not  snort;  on  the  contrary  he  smiled  a 
little  tight,  crooked  smile,  and  bowed  gratefully. 

"Madame  Petersen,"  he  said,  "must  have  a 
nurse." 

^^Neterlich.  You  can  send  one?  You  know  of  a 
suitable  one?  Madame  Petersen  is — much  es- 
teemed by  me."  ("Madame  Petersen,"  said  her 
Highness's  manner,  "is  a  lady  of  importance.") 

"Yes,  yes.  That  is  self-understood.  Your  High- 
ness, there  is  my  sister-in-law;  a  widow  herself,  and 
since  her  husband's  death  she  has  returned  to  her 
profession  of  nursing.  A  very  capable  lady,  and 
much  experienced." 

("I  wonder,"  thought  the  Princess,  "if  she  is  as 
old  as  you  and  as  ugly?") 

"If  she  is  very  cheerful "  she  said  aloud. 

"She  is  cheerful.  And  young,  quite  young.  Say 
forty.  Also  she  is  of  a  pleasant  visage.  Also  she 
is  at  hand,  for  she  is  in  my  house.  She,  and  my 
wife,  and  I  were  at  tea  when  your  Highness  sent 
for  me." 

"I  think,  if  she  could  come  at  once,  I  would  like 
to  wait  till  she  arrives." 

The   Princess's  carriage   took  the   doctor  home, 


84  THE  TIDEWAY 

and,  in  quarter  of  an  hour,  returned  with  his  sister- 
in-law.  She  looked  under  forty,  and  was  really 
pleasant,  and  reasonably  good-looking.  As  she  en- 
tered the  dressing-room  the  Princess  rose  from  a 
chair  with  a  book  in  her  hand. 

*'I  was  reading  this  English  novel,"  she  said, 
smiling,  "till  you  should  arrive.  It  seems  charm- 
ing— no  doubt  you  read  English." 

"Alas,  no,  Highness.  I  neither  read  nor  talk  it 
— I  do  not  understand  it  at  all.  Is  that  necessary? 
Does  Madame  not  speak  German?" 

"Oh  yes.  She  is  not  English.  But  it  is  her 
language.  She  talks  German  fluently.  At  present 
too  fluently — she  wanders  incessantly." 

The  Princess  had  not  really  been  sitting  there 
reading  since  the  little  doctor's  departure;  she  had 
only  left  Ida's  side  on  hearing  the  carriage  return. 
Before  that  she  had  been  very  tenderly  bathing  the 
girl's  burning  forehead  with  Eau  de  Cologne,  and 
softly  smoothing  her  lovely,  but  too  abundant,  hair. 
Ida  never  ceased  to  mutter  and  chatter. 

"Oh!"  she  moaned,  "why  did  you  and  father  both 
die?  You  wouldn't  have  let  me  act,  act,  act  fool- 
ishly. Especially  you.  You  knew  I  was  foolish. 
You  said  so.  You  know  you  did.  You  used  to  say 
that.  Not  crossly,  I  know.  You  used  not  to  scold. 
Father  scolded.  Sometimes  he  lost — his  temper. 
He  was  not  gentle.  He  was  good.  Yes,  I  know. 
Harsh.  Sometimes  nearly  savage.  I  knew  he  was 
good.  Only  you  never  frightened  me.  Didn't  I 
always  do  what  you  advised?  If  you  had  come 
back  then — then.  It's  too  late  now.  He  has  done 
it  now.  It  can't  be  altered  now.  If  you  had  come 
back  then  I  should  have  listened.  You  would  have 
known.  You  always  knew.  You  would  not  have 
let  me.  I  know  you  would  not  have  let  me.  He 
looked  so  good.     You  would  have  known  he  was 


THE  LADY  OF  THE  DUNES  HO  RE    85 

bad.  It  was  not  in  his  face.  Oh,  his  face — up 
above  me,  looking  down,  frightened,  frightful.  Oh  ! 
I  was  not  frightened  before — not  very  much;  it  was 
dangerous.  Yes,  I  knew.  But  I  was  not  terrified 
till  I  saw  his  face.  If  you  had  come  back  in  time, 
it's  too  late  now;  it's  all  done.  You  would  not  have 
let  me  marry  him.  I  should  have  listened — really. 
Yes,  though  I  did  worship  him.  But  I  should  have 
listened  to  you.  To  father,  even.  You  both  died. 
I  had  nobody.  Nobody  left.  And  I  wanted  some- 
body. And  I  loved  him  then.  Till  he — oh,  his 
face !  Up  above  me.  Looking  down.  Peering 
down.  Cruel.  Oh  !  coward — cruel.  Then  I  grew 
afraid.  I  knew.  I  knew  what  his  face  meant.  To 
kill  me.  To  save  himself.  I  knew  before  I  saw  the 
knife.  Oh,  the  mean  terror  in  his  face.  Like  a 
dog.  His  lips  frothed.  He  hated  me  for  terror. 
Oh — when  his  eyes  looked  down;  the  fear  in  them; 
the  hatred  of  fear;  and  the  fumbling  for  the  knife. 
The  knife  was  in  his  eyes  first — before  I  saw  it  in 
his  hand.  Ah,  ah!  too  late,  mother,  you  cannot 
wipe  him  out  like  that.  Ah-h-h."  And  she  fell 
back  with  a  sudden  despairing  upward  gaze,  fell  as 
one  falls  in  nightmare,  on  to  her  low,  flat  pillow. 

"She  is  m  a  nightmare,"  thought  the  Princess. 
''Ah,  poor  child !  Yes,  she  feels  as  if  she  were  fall- 
ing an  immeasurable  distance,  and  it  is  only  on  to  her 
pillow.     /  have  had  a  nightmare  like  that." 

IX 

Anton  von  Helsing  was  in  Paris.  He  had  taken 
up  his  quarters  at  a  good  hotel  of  established  repute, 
which  was  not,  however,  one  of  the  newest,  most 
fashionable  and  most  luxurious.  We  may  call  it  the 
Hotel  de  I'Aigle. 

He  was  lunching,  and  at  another  table  not  next  to 


86  THE  TIDEWAY 

his  own,  but  opposite  to  it,  another  young  man  was 
hinching  alone.  As  it  happened,  at  all  the  other 
tables  there  were  little  parties  of  two,  three  or  more. 
The  young  man  opposite  was  evidently  British;  his 
dress,  his  face,  his  manner  all  proclaimed  it,  and 
Anton  decided  that  he  was  of  good  position,  also 
that  he  was  not  much  used  to  Paris,  He  was  tall 
and  stalwart,  and  though  not  handsome  had  a  pleas- 
ant and  trustworthy  face.  The  eyes  were  of  a 
greenish  hazel;  the  hair  what  is  called  sandy  and  not 
in  the  least  of  the  color  of  sand;  the  mouth  rather 
large,  and  it  carried  out  the  kindly  expression  of  the 
very  clear  eyes.  The  moustache  was  blonde,  and 
not  big.  His  hands  were  rather  big,  strong-looking, 
and  capable. 

When  he  had  finished  eating  he  signed  to  a  waiter, 
who  noted  down  what  he  had  eaten  and  drunk,  and 
took  the  number  of  his  room.  Then  he  asked  a 
question,  which  Anton  overheard,  got  up  and  went 
out. 

Five  minutes  later  Anton  went  through  the  same 
ceremonies. 

In  the  hall  he  asked  the  concierge  if  he  knew  the 
name  of  No.  31. 

"Oh  yes,  Highness!  The  Earl  of  Solway.  An 
Englishman." 

*'Ah,  I  felt  sure  he  was  English." 

Anton  got  his  hat  and  went  out.  Getting  into  a 
taxi  he  said  to  the  man: 

*'Au  Salon  de  Peintres  Inconnus,  Avenue  des 
Champs  Ely  sees" 

The  gallery  was  not  very  large,  consisting  of  two 
small  rooms,  and  one  more  spacious.  Some  of  the 
artists  who  exhibited  there  had  evidently  a  macabre 
taste ;  some  seemed  to  be  much  in  want  of  any  taste 
at  all;  and  some  were,  one  would  say,  not  likely  to 
remain  always  inconnus. 


THE  LADY  OF  THE  DUNESHORE    87 

Nearly  in  the  middle  of  the  Grande  Salle  there 
was  an  ottoman,  and  there  Anton  sat  down,  and  be- 
gan to  study  his  catalogue.  There  were,  as  yet  at 
all  events,  very  few  visitors  to  the  pictures.  When 
therefore  Lord  Solway  came  in,  as  Anton  had  been 
waiting  for  him  to  do,  he  saw  him  at  once.  Till  he 
had  heard  him  ask  the  waiter  the  whereabouts  of 
the  Salon  de  Peintres  Inconnus,  Anton  himself  had 
not  thought  of  visiting  it.  All  the  same,  he  knew  the 
gallery,  and  had  been  here  before,  during  other  visits 
to  Paris.  He  himself  knew  much  and  cared  much 
about  pictures — somehow  he  had  been  a  little  sur- 
prised to  hear  that  other  young  man  inquiring  for 
this  particular  gallery,  not  one  well-known  to  for- 
eigners, or  to  persons  without  any  special  fondness 
for  art. 

When  Lord  Solway  entered  the  Grande  Salle  he 
held  a  catalogue  open  in  his  hand,  and  was  clearly 
seeking  a  number.  Having  found  it  he  walked 
straight  to  the  picture.  No.  179,  without  even  glanc- 
ing at  any  other.  From  where  Anton  sat  it  was 
quite  easy  to  see  at  which  picture  the  Scotsman  was 
looking.  But  it  was  not  so  easy  to  read  the  number  of 
it.  For  several  minutes  the  young  man  stood  Intent- 
ly regarding  the  picture;  and  when  he  turned  away 
the  expression  of  his  face  was  very  singular.  It  was 
a  kindly,  good-natured  face,  but  now  there  was  a 
murderous  savage  expression  in  the  clear  eyes,  and 
the  pleasant  mouth  was  very  hard-set. 

Anton  got  up  and  walked  across  to  the  picture, 
and  as  he  did  so  the  two  young  men's  eyes  met  for 
an  instant  and  the  prince  slightly  raised  his  hat. 

"Oh.  You  are  in  my  hotel,"  said  the  Scotsman. 
"I  saw  you  at  luncheon,  at  a  table  near  mine." 

"Yes.     Of  course,  I  saw  you  too." 

Anton  smiled  as  he  said  this,  and  Lord  Solway 
said : 


88  THE  TIDEWAY 

"Are  you  English?" 

"No,  I  am  Prince  Anton  of  Helsing-Wefssburg. 
You  are  Lord  Solway?  I  think  I  know  a  relation 
of  yours." 

Having  said  this  he  moved  on  to  the  picture,  and 
Lord  Solway  went  back  to  it  with  him. 

Anton  stood  opposite  it,  reading  it,  as  one  reads 
a  book:  and  slowly  on  his  face  the  expression  deep- 
ened to  intensity,  quite  slowly,  for  he  had  to  under- 
stand gradually.  Perhaps  it  was  not  dark  and 
vengeful  as  Lord  Solway's  had  been,  for  anger  and 
loathing  had  to  fight  with  compassion,  and  the  com- 
passion was  in  his  case  the  stronger  emotion. 

"I  had  that  painted,"  said  Lord  Solway.  "It  is 
not  by  a  Frenchman.  It  was  done  for  me  by  a  Scots 
artist.  And  it  has  been  exhibited  in  many  galleries. 
I  had  it  done  for  a  purpose.  And  It  is  advertised 
for  a  purpose.     Have  you  read  what  is  under  it?" 

At  the  foot  of  the  picture  was  a  gilt  label,  on 
which,  in  English  and  French,  was  the  following  in- 
scription in  black  letters. 

"A  noble  lady  married  an  ignoble  young  man. 
Within  a  few  weeks  he  and  she  together  went  to  seek 
for  the  eggs  of  a  very  rare  sea-bird.  They  de- 
scended the  precipice  by  means  of  a  knotted  rope. 
When  the  husband  felt  the  rope  unequal  to  their 
weight  he  cut  it,  beneath  himself,  and  saved  him- 
self." 

"Yes,"  said  Anton.     "I  have  read." 

Both  young  men  continued  steadfastly  gazing  at 
the  picture  which  represented  the  scene. 

"It  is,"  said  Anton  gravely,  "her  whom  I  know." 

"But,"  cried  Lord  Solway,  "you  cannot.  He 
killed  her." 

He  laid  his  hand  on  the  prince's  arm,  and  Anton 
felt  it  tremble. 

"He  meant  to  let  her  be  killed.  But  she  is  alive. 
She  is  Lady  Sylvia  Carstairs." 


THE  LADY  OF  THE  DUNESHORE    89 

"Of  course.  My  cousin.  I  succeeded  her  father. 
I  was  only  twenty  then.  I  was  never  intimate  with 
him  or  with  her.  But  I  have  no  sentiment  stronger 
than  my  loathing  for  that  beast — "  and  he  pointed 
to  the  man  in  the  picture.  Anton  had  an  even 
stronger  sentiment — pity  for  the  victim  of  the  beast. 
But  he  did  not  say  that. 

"How  can  she  be  alive?"  cried  Solway.  "Don't 
you  see  it  is  impossible?  You"  must  have  met  her 
before." 

"No.  I  never  met  her  till  three  weeks  ago.  She 
is  alive.  Hozv  I  cannot  tell.  Lord  Solway,  I  do 
not  feel  sure  yet  whether  I  ought  or  ought  not^  to 
tell  you  where  she  is.  I  only  know  that  she  is  living 
somewhere,  and  that  she  hides  her  identity,  that  she 
wishes  to  conceal  her  existence.  I  will  think  it  over, 
if  you  will  not  mind,  and  this  evening  if  you  will 
come  to  my  room  in  the  hotel  I  will  tell  you  what  I 
have  decided.  I  am  not  at  all  intimate  with  her, 
though  I  respect  her  most  deeply.  I  would  rather 
say  no  more  at  this  moment,  and  I  will  ask  you  to 
leave  it  at  that.  Of  course  you  are  impatient,  per- 
haps inclined  to  be  angry  with  me :  but  I  cannot  help 
it.  What  I  feel  is  this — by  an  accident  I  have  her 
secret,  and  no  one  else  has.  I  must  decide  whether 
I  am  bound  to  keep  it,  though,  frankly,  I  shall  prob- 
ably decide  not  to  keep  it  from  you." 

"I  hope  you  will  not.  Would  you  rather  I  now 
left  you?" 

"Yes,  I  think  so." 

"Very  well.  Good-by,  Prince.  I  hope  you  will 
decide  to  tell  me  all  you  know." 

And  Lord  Solway  lifted  his  hat  and  went  away. 
Anton  sat  down,  where  he  had  sat  before,  to  think. 
For  over  two  hours  he  sat  there,  and  by  that  time 
there  were  more  visitors  to  the  gallery.  As  he  got 
up  at  last  to  go  away  he  saw  a  young,  very  hand- 
some man  coming  across  the  gallery,  so  singularly 


90  THE  TIDEWAY 

handsome  that  several  people  looked  at  him  with 
almost  open  admiration.  Yet  Anton  instantly  dis- 
liked him.  It  was  not  a  bad  face  at  first  glance,  but 
something  ruined  it;  a  furtive,  driven  look.  The 
young  man  did  not  seem  at  all  vain;  you  would  say 
that  he  quite  ignored  his  own  really  rare  beauty;  if 
he  was  aware  that  people  looked  at  him  with  curi- 
osity, he  was  certainly  not  delighted  by  it.  His  man- 
ner was  at  once  irresolute  and  harried.  He  was 
extremely  slim,  and  not  tall,  very  light  in  weight,  no 
doubt.  He  walked  with  a  queer  indetermination, 
almost  zigzagging,  as  he  went  across  and  across  the 
gallery.  "Like  a  mosquito,"  thought  Anton.  Once 
he  got  quite  close  to  No.  179,  and  Anton  thought  he 
was  going  to  look  at  it,  but  he  didn't.  Three  other 
people  stood  opposite  it,  and  he  turned  sharply  away 
and  crossed  the  room.  Presently  there  was  no  one 
by  No.  179,  and  he  turned  as  sharply  as  before  and 
zigzagged  across  the  gallery,  so  that  till  he  had  actu- 
ally brought  himself  to  it  you  could  not  have  told 
whether  he  really  meant  to  go  and  look  at  it  or  no. 
But  he  did  go  this  time,  and  he  devoured  the  picture 
with  his  haggard,  splendid  eyes. 

"It  was  for  that,"  thought  Anton,  "that  Solway 
had  it  painted.  Incredible  that  it  should  have  suc- 
ceeded." 

There  was  no  one  at  all  near  No.  179  now  except 
the  singularly  handsome  young  man.  Anton 
watched,  but  did  not  seem  to  watch.  Not  till  the 
man  who  devoured  the  picture  turned  away  did  An- 
ton walk  up  to  him  and  say : 

"Isn't  it  a  pity  the  painter  did  not  make  the  faces 
portraits?" 

"Oh!  I  don't  know.  Yes,  of  course.  But  the 
picture  would  have  had  to  be  so  large." 

The  gallery  was  closing,  and  there  was  a  small 
crowd  round  the  door.     Anton  kept  close   to  the 


THE  LADY  OF  THE  DUNESHORE    91 

stranger,  without  this  being  very  marked,  as  they 
had  to  wait  for  the  people  in  front  to  get  out. 

"You,"  remarked  Anton,  "are  not  the  only  person 
specially  interested  in  No.  179  this  afternoon. 
There " 

"Oh,  I'm  not  at  all  interested  in  it.  It  is  macabre 
and  I  don't  admire  the  sort  of  thing.  I  came  to 
look  at  203.     A  friend  of  mine  painted  it." 

It  was  a  bad  shot. 

"Ah,"  said  Anton,  "Jean  Berthel's  picture.  It 
has  been  here  five  years." 

"Yes,  yes,  I  know  that.     He  told  me." 

"Your  friends,  Monsieur,  are  unlucky.  He  also 
is  dead." 

The  people  in  front  had  mostly  got  out  now,  and 
the  stranger  pushed  on. 

"Yes,  yes,"  he  said,  "of  course  he's  dead " 

"I  supposed  he  told  you." 

The  handsome  stranger  had  edged  between  two 
slightly  indignant  ladies,  and  was  quite  close  to  the 
door.  But  there  they  made  him  wait  his  turn,  and 
Anton  managed  to  get  close  to  him  again. 

"The  other  men  interested  in  No.  179,"  he  said 
over  the  wretched  stranger's  shoulder,  "who  visited 
it  to-day  are  myself  and — Lord  Solway." 

"He  is  in  Paris?"  The  words  were  simply 
blurted  out  by  sheer  surprise  and  worry. 

"Oh,  yes!  Shall  I  give  him  a  rendezvous  from 
you?  I'm  sure  he  would  wish  to  see  you.  He  is  in 
Paris  on  purpose  to  see  the  picture — but  I  know, 
Mr.  Garioch,  he  would  like  to  see  you,  too." 

X 

As  soon  as  Anton  had  returned  to  the  Hotel  de 
I'Aigle  he  asked  if  Lord  Solway  was  in. 


92  THE  TIDEWAY 

"No,  Highness.  But  he  said  he  should  dine  here, 
and  he  must  be  in  shortly." 

"Will  you  please  ask  him,  as  soon  as  he  returns, 
to  come  to  my  room?" 

Half  an  hour  later  Lord  Solway  knocked  at  the 
Prince's  door. 

"1  am  not  immediately  going  to  tell  you,"  said 
Anton,  "where  I  met  Lady  Sylvia  Garioch,  or  how 
it  comes  about  that  I  know  anything  of  her  history. 
Simply  because  I  have  something  else  to  tell  you. 
Garioch  is  in  Paris." 

Lord  Solway,  who  had  only  just  sat  down,  jumped 
up  again  and  said:  "Where?   How  do  you  know?" 

"I  know  because  I  saw  him.  I  did  not  know  him 
by  sight — I  had  never  seen  him.  But  for  meeting 
you  I  should  not  have  known  who  he  was  when  I  did 
see  him.  It  has  all  happened  most  wonderfully. 
My  meeting  with  you  here  was  purely  accidental;  I 
had  never  imagined  I  should  meet  you.  Then  you 
told  me  how  you  had  had  that  picture  painted,  and 
that  you  had  done  that  for  a  purpose,  and  had  it 
exhibited  in  many  places,  and  its  whereabouts  adver- 
tised for  the  same  purpose.  It  was  not  hard  to 
guess  the  purpose.  You  were  in  hopes  he  would 
be  drawn,  compelled,  to  go  and  look  at  it.    .    .    ." 

"Yes,  that  was  my  purpose." 

"Strange  to  say  it  succeeded.  He  came  to  look 
at  it  this  afternoon.  I  was  still  there.  I  watched 
everyone  who  looked  at  it,  but  only  he  looked  at  it 
in  any  fashion  at  all  remarkable.  I  spoke  to  him, 
and  let  him  see  I  knew  the  story;  I  stuck  to  him  and 
bothered  him,  and  told  him  yoii  were  in  Paris,  and 
would  like  to  see  him.  By  that  time  I  was  sure  it 
was  he,  and  I  called  him  by  his  name;  then  I  was  still 
surer.  All  the  way  down  the  steps  of  the  gallery 
I  stuck  to  him,  talking,  and  telling  him  you  were  de- 
termined to  meet  him.     I  think  he  was  nearly  mad 


THE  LADY  OF  THE  DUNESHORE    93 

before  he  got  off.  There  was  only  one  taxi  outside 
and  he  jumped  into  it — it  had  evidently  brought  him 
there,  and  was  waiting  for  him. 

"To  where  we  came  from,"  he  told  the  driver, 
and  the  man  went  off  at  once," 

"So  you  lost  him." 

"For  a  time,  yes.  But  I  got  another  cab  very 
soon,  and  told  my  man  he  was  to  drive  up  the 
Avenue  and  see  if  he  could  pick  up  No.  1266  that 
was  ahead.  I  said  if  he  did  I  would  give  him  fifty 
francs  over  and  above  whatever  fare  there  might 
be  to  pay.  Well  he  did  pick  it  up,  close  to  the  Place 
de  I'Etoile.  'Now  follow,'  I  told  him.  And  he 
did — down  the  Avenue  Friedland,  and  back  into 
Paris:  finally  to  the  Hotel  Mercedes,  a  rather  mis- 
erable place  in  the  Rue  St.  Anne.  There  he  got  out 
and  paid  the  man,  and  went  in.  I  did  not  let  my 
man  stop,  but  went  on  to  the  end  of  the  street. 
There  I  got  rid  of  him  and  went  back:  Garioch  had 
not  come  out  again.  He  was  still  inside  the  hotel. 
I  reconnoitered  and  saw  he  was  not  in  the  entrance, 
and  went  in  myself.  I  asked  the  concierge  if  a 
Lord  Edinburgh  was  staying  there,  a  friend  of  mine 
who  had  written  to  say  he  was  coming  to  Paris  and 
would  descend  at  the  Hotel  Mercedes.  The  man 
was  flattered:  it  is  not  at  all  a  sort  of  place  where 
lords  would  come :  and  he  pretended  not  to  be  quite 
sure.  'There  is,'  he  said,  on  examining  the  list,  'a 
Scottish  gentleman,  M.  MacAlistair — but  no,  all 
our  other  guests  are  French.  If  milord  Edinburgh 
arrives  shall  I  say  that  Monsieur  called  to  see  him?' 
I  said,  'Yes,'  and  at  that  moment  Garioch  came  hur- 
riedly downstairs  into  the  hall.  He  looked  worse 
than  ever.  At  sight  of  me  he  stopped  and  turned 
crimson.  'Monsieur,'  said  the  concierge,  'calls  to 
inquire  for  his  friend  milord  Edinburgh,  whose 
arrival  at  the  Hotel  Mercedes  he  expects,' 


94  THE  TIDEWAY 

"Garioch  lost  his  head  and  cried  fiercely: 

"  'There  is  no  Lord  Edinburgh.  It  is  a  lie. 
That  man  is  a  spy.'  The  concierge  was  a  bit  taken 
aback;  but  I  did  not  look  guilty  and  Garioch  did. 

"  'Nonsense,'  I  said  calmly,  "I  am  not  a  spy.  I 
am  Prince  Anton  of  Helsing-Weissburg.'  And  ^ 
took  out  a  card-case  with  a  crowned  cypher  on  it 
and  gave  the  concierge  one  of  my  cards.  'You  are 
quite  welcome  to  find  out  all  about  me  at  the  Ger- 
man Embassy  if  you  like,'  I  told  him ;  'in  fact,  to  go 
there  with  me  now.  As  to  your  M.  MacAlistair, 
his  real  name  is  Garioch,  and  I  advise  you  to  look 
after  him.  He  committed  a  horrible  crime — and 
you  can  see  for  yourself  that  he  knows  I  speak  the 
truth.'  Garioch  indeed  looked  appalling.  But 
with  a  fierce  exclamation  he  turned  and  went  upstairs 
again.  I  doubt  very  much  If  the  concierge  will  let 
him  go  out  without  seeing  where  he  goes." 

In  this  Anton  was  wrong.  When  he  and  Lord 
Solway  went  to  the  Hotel  Mercedes  they  were  told 
that  M.  MacAlistair  had  paid  his  bill  and  left. 

"I  was  not  sorry,"  said  the  concierge.  "If  he  Is 
really  a  criminal  we  do  not  want  him  here.  But 
neither  do  we  want  to  have  him  arrested  here,  nor 
to  have  his  name  connected  with  our  hotel.  That 
sort  of  reclame  we  do  not  desire."  "Of  course,  It 
seemed  as  If  Garioch  was  quite  lost  to  us.  But,  as 
I  left  the  hotel  a  young  waiter  came  after  me,  on 
pretence  of  opening  the  door  for  me.  He  came 
outside  on  to  the  step,  and  said.  'Attene,  I  took 
the  number  of  the  taxi,  It  was  8906 :  and  he  told  the 
driver  to  go  to  the  Gare  St.  Lazare.'  I  tipped  the 
fellow  and  came  on  here  to  get  you.  There  Is  no 
train  for  England  from  St.  Lazare  till  9.20;  that 
is  via  Dieppe :  ordinarily  speaking  there  is  the  7.47 
via  Havre,  but  to-night  that  train  does  not  run 
because  of  an  accident  to  a  bit  of  the  line  that  is 


THE  LADY  OF  THE  DUNESHORE    95 

flooded.  I  happened  to  read  that  in  a  paper 
this  morning.  Shall  we  go  to  the  Gare  St. 
Lazare?" 

"Yes.      Can  you  come  at  once?" 

The  young  men  went  off  together,  without  waiting 
to  eat  anything:  and  in  less  than  ten  minutes  were  at 
the  Gare  St.  Lazare.  They  went  to  the  ticket-office 
for  the  Dieppe  line  and  Anton  asked  for  a  ticket  for 
London. 

"It  is  only  eight  o'clock,"  said  the  man,  "the  train 
is  not  till  9.20. 

"Oh  very  well.  I  will  not  take  the  ticket  yet 
then.  I  really  want  to  travel  with  a  friend,  I  sup- 
pose he  has  not  asked  for  a  ticket  yet — a  very  singu- 
larly handsome  gentleman,  English,  with  a  green 
tie." 

"He  wanted  a  ticket  for  the  7.47  to  Havre:  and 
I  told  him  the  train  does  not  run  to-night.  He 
arrived  in  good  time  for  it,  soon  after  six  o'clock. 
I  noticed  him,  because  he  is  so  handsome  as  Mon- 
sieur says,  and  also  because  he  looked  very  ill — a 
par  pres  abime.     And  he  was  excited." 

"There,"  said  Anton,  turning  away.  "I  did  not 
really  want  a  ticket.  But  I  have  found  out  that  he 
really  came  here.  My  waiter  at  the  Hotel  de 
I'Aigle  did  not  lie.  The  question  is  did  he  stay 
here?  He  would  probably  go  to  the  Bureau  de  ren- 
seignments  here  and  find  out  if  there  were  an  earlier 
train  than  the  9.20  from  here  at  some  other  station. 
Let  us  ask." 

They  did  ask,  and  found  that  the  gentleman,  who 
spoke  French  badly,  had  inquired  as  Anton  had 
guessed. 

"I  told  him,"  said  the  man,  "that  there  was  the 
9  o'clock  from  the  Gare  du  Nord.  But  he  seemed 
nearly  fou  to  find  there  was  nothing  earlier.  For 
some  minutes  he  walked  most  impatiently  up  and 


96  THE  TIDEWAY 

down  the  Grande  Salle,  then  he  disappeared — per- 
haps to  get  dinner." 

For  nearly  half  an  hour  Anton  and  Solway  walked 
about  the  huge  station,  but  there  was  no  sign  of 
Garioch. 

"We  may  as  well,"  said  Anton,  "sit  down  at  one 
of  the  tables  of  the  buffet  out  here  in  the  hall  and 
pass  some  of  the  time  away  dining.  It  won't  be  a 
very  nice  dinner.  But  we  can  see  a  good  deal  from 
there." 

So  they  took  a  table,  out  in  the  great  hall,  and 
watched  all  who  came  up  the  stairs  close  to  them. 
Garioch  might  not  come  up  by  them,  of  course,  for 
there  are  two  other  stairways  leading  up  from  the 
entrance.  But,  as  it  happened,  he  did  come :  it  was 
then  nearly  nine  o'clock;  and  his  first  glance  was 
towards  the  clock.  iVlmost  instantly  he  looked  at 
the  crowd  of  little  tables  and  his  eyes  fell  on  Anton 
and  Solway.  His  face  was  quite  colorless,  and  his 
mouth  twitched :  the  driven  look  was  now  far  more 
terrible,  and  his  eyes  had  a  hunted,  quite  desperate 
expression.  He  turned  sharply  and  ran  down  the 
stairs,  jostling  against  many  of  those  who  were  com- 
ing up. 

"Solway,"  said  Anton,  "I  had  better  do  the  pay- 
ing here.  I  shall  manage  it  quicker.  You  can  go 
after  him.     I  will  follow." 

Lord  Solway  went  off  at  once,  but  half  way  down 
the  stairs  he  was  at  fault:  the  stairs  turned  to  the 
right  into  the  lower  hall  of  the  station,  but  on  the 
left  was  an  opening  into  the  Rue  d'Amsterdam  that 
runs  uphill  alongside.  There  was  no  sign  of  Gari- 
och— by  which  way  had  he  gone? 

Solway  decided  to  go  out  into  the  street,  and  go 
down  it  as  quickly  as  possible  to  the  station  entrance 
gates:  it  was  almost  certain  that  by  hurrying  he 
would  reach  them  before  Garioch  could  pass  out  that 
way. 


THE  LADY  OF  THE  DUNES  HO  RE    97 

When  Garioch  reached  the  gates — he  had  gone 
down  into  the  courtyard  of  the  station — he  saw  Sol- 
way  standing  on  the  curb  outside  watching  for  him. 
He  turned  abruptly  and  saw  the  prince  coming 
towards  him.  He  stood  still,  waivered,  and  turned 
again.  Someone  cried  out  and  in  a  moment  a  large 
and  heavy  motor  had  knocked  him  down  and  passed 
over  him. 

He  was  not  killed  outright,  but  horribly  crushed, 
and  the  blood  spurted  from  his  mouth.  Almost 
immediately  he  died. 

XI 

"Now,"  said  Anton,  "I  will  tell  you  all  I  know." 

He  and  Solway  were  sitting  by  the  fire  in  the 
prince's  room,  and  it  was  past  midnight. 

The  story  was  not  very  long. 

"You  see,"  he  ended,  "I  cannot  tell  you  how  she 
comes  to  be  alive.  That  she  must  tell  us.  But  this 
I  will  tell  you — if  I  can  induce  her,  some  day,  to 
accept  me,  I  will  marry  her.  There  is  another 
thing  to  say;  I  have  letters  from  my  mother,  I  found 
them  here  when  I  came  in  this  afternoon :  and  she 
writes  that  Lady  Sylvia — 'Madame  Petersen' — is 
very  ill  indeed,  with  brain-fever.  But  at  the  end 
of  her  second  letter,  for  two  arrived  together,  she 
says  that  Madame  seemed  better,  though  not  yet 
out  of  danger.  I  shall  return  at  once  to  Helsing. 
Would  you  like  to  come  with  me?" 

"Certainly  I  would,  but  you  understand  that  I  do 
not  know  my  cousin  well.  Oh !  and  you  must  re- 
member I  came  here  hurriedly  and  have  not  with 
me  exactly  the  clothes  for  introduction  to  a  princely 
household." 

Of  course  Prince  Anton  assured  him  that  that  did 
not  matter,  though  it  is  unlikely  that  any  one  of  his 
brothers  would  have  thought  so,  and  it  was  agreed 
that  they  should  start  together  the  next  morning. 


98  THE  TIDEWAY 

When  they  reached  Helsing  it  was  over  a  fortnight 
since  the  day  on  which  Madame  Petersen  had  been 
taken  ill,  and  she  was  no  longer  in  danger.  The 
little  doctor  had  really  been  skillful  and  his  sister 
had  proved  a  most  devoted  and  capable  nurse. 
Princess  Rudolf  had  come  to  see  her  patient  every 
day,  and  after  the  second  day  the  girl  had  fully 
recognized  her,  and  had  entirely  ceased  to  wander 
in  her  mind  and  talk.  She  had  been  disposed  from 
the  first  to  like  the  Princess,  though  she  did  not  al- 
together approve  of  her,  and  long  before  Anton 
and  Solway  arrived  she  had  learned  to  be  very  fond 
of  her. 

"You  really  are  like  my  own  mother,"  the  girl 
assured  her,  "while  I  was  light-headed  I  thought 
it  was  my  mother  come  back  again.  Yet  I  knew,  all 
the  time,  that  she  was  dead." 

"If  your  mother,"  declared  the  Princess  laugh- 
ing, "was  like  me,  it  is  not  from  her  that  you  in- 
herit your  beauty." 

On  the  following  afternoon  "Madame  Petersen" 
was  downstairs  for  the  first  time,  and  she  found  her 
drawing-room  full  of  beautiful  flowers.  As  she  had 
only  one  friend  in  Helsing,  it  was  not  hard  to  guess 
whence  they  came,  and  as  soon  as  the  Princess  ar- 
rived she  thanked  her. 

"Oh,  I  sent  them  on  Anton's  behalf,"  his 
mother  said  cheerfully,  "as  he  isn't  here  yet  to  send 
them  for  himself." 

The  girl  knew  at  once  by  her  tone  that  he  was 
coming,  and  a  little  flush  crept  over  her  pale  face. 

"He  hasn't  been  away  long  this  time,"  the 
Princess  went  on.  "I  hadn't  expected  him  so  soon. 
But  he  will  be  here  to-night."  She  meant  at  the 
Chalet,  but  intended  Madame  Petersen  to  think, 
as  she  did  think,  that  he  would  only  arrive  at  Hel- 
sing that  night.  He  was  already  at  Helsing,  and 
Princess  Rudolf  now  knew  all  he  could  tell  her. 


THE  LADY  OF  THE  DUNESHORE    99 

"He  has,"  she  went  on  cheerfully,  "a  traveling 
companion  who  knows  you — not  very  intimately 
though  he  is  a  relation." 

"Knows  me?  Prince  Anton  traveling  with  some- 
body who  knows  me.  How  can  the  Prince  know 
that." 

"The  Prince  knows  all  sorts  of  things.  My  dear, 
it  is  best  to  make  no  mysteries.  There  is  no  longer 
any  occasion  for  them.     Lord  Solway  is  with  him." 

"Lord  Solway!" 

"Yes.  And  I  must  say  you  have  behaved  rather 
badly  in  reference  to  a  very  kind  man." 

"But  he  must  have  thought  I  was  dead." 

"Exactly.  And  you  aren't.  Now,  my  dear  Syl- 
via, he  and  Anton  have  important  news.  They,  or 
one  of  them,  will  tell  it  to  you  in  full  when  you  are 
strong  enough  to  hear  it  in  full.  But  I  intend  to  tell 
you  myself  in  part,  and  whether  the  Herr  Doctor 
would  allow  me  to  do  so,  if  he  knew,  I  cannot  tell.  I 
take  it  on  myself.  For  it  concerns  things  of  which 
the  Herr  Doctor  knows  nothing.  No  one  knows  ex- 
cept Anton,  and  Lord  Solway,  and  L  It  is  seldom 
news,  but  I  am  not  hypocrite  enough  to  pretend  that 
is  bad  news.  You  are  alive,  and  someone  else  is 
dead." 

The  girl's  eyes  were  fastened  on  her  face. 

"Who?"  she  whispered,  laying  a  hand  on  the 
Princess's  arm. 

"Your  husband."  And  Princess  Rudolf  watched, 
not  without  much  trepidation,  the  effect  of  her 
words.  The  girl's  eyes  filled  with  tears  which  did 
not  fall,  and  she  looked  away  into  the  red  heart  of 
the  fire.  Her  lips  moved  soundlessly,  and  she  bent 
her  lovely  head  a  little. 

The  kind,  queer,  rash,  and  tactless  Princess 
slipped  to  the  floor,  and  knelt  beside  her,  caressing 
her  softly. 

"How   do  you  know,"   the   girl   said,   suddenly, 


loo  THE  TIDEWAY 

"who  my  husband  was?  That  he,  who  you  say  is 
dead,  was  my  husband?" 

"You  married  David  Garioch  of  Duners.  He  is 
dead.  Anton  and  Lord  Solway  saw  him  dead. 
7  here  is  no  mistake." 

Sylvia  looked  back  at  the  fire  and  sighed. 

"I  have  longed  to  be  free  from  him — from  the 
thought  of  him,"  she  said  simply.  "And  nothing 
could  free  me.  Now  that  I  am  free — "  she  paused 
an  instant  and  went  on,  "it  is  like  the  end  of  a  night- 
mare. While  it  lasted  1  could  only  loathe  him.  Now 
it  is  over  I  do  not  loathe  him  any  more.  Is  that  not 
odd?  For  his  being  dead  makes  no  difference  to 
what  he  did." 

"He  killed  you — as  he  thought  and  meant — to 
save  his  own  mean  life?" 

"Yes.  If  he  had  wanted  to  kill  me  because  he 
hated  me  it  would  not  have  been  so  bad.  It  was 
the  meanness  and  cowardice  that  made  him  loath- 
some to  me.  I  doubt  if  he  was  wicked.  Simply  a 
coward.  I  do  not  know,  but  I  think  I  could  have 
pardoned  any  wickedness." 

"My  dear,  you  are  a  woman.  We  are  all  like 
that." 

"Well,  now  I  can  pardon  that,  too.  Death  ends 
it.     There  is  no  meanness  in  death." 

After  a  while  she  spoke  again. 

"It  is  odd.  All  these  months  and  months  that 
make  up  over  two  years  his  face  has  been  madden- 
ning  me,  as  I  saw  it  that  last  time.  Now  it  is  gone. 
I  can  only  remember  it  as  I  saw  it  the  first  day  we 
ever  met.     He  was  quite  wonderfully  handsome." 

"So  Anton  says." 

"Ah!     He  is  here?" 

"Yes,  he  is  here." 

"Please,  do  not  let  him  come  to  me.  I  want 
to  be  quite  well  before  I  see  him." 

"He  shall  not  come  till  you  are  well,  Sylvia " 


THE  LADY  OF  THE  DUNESHORE     loi 

"What?" 

"Will  you  tell  me  how  it  is  you  were  not  killed.'' 
I  know  all  the  rest." 

The  girl  sighed  again  and  said: 

"When  he  cut  the  rope,  just  above  my  hands,  I 
fell,  fell,  fell.  And  he  could  see  me  no  more.  There 
was  a  vehement  wind,  and  it  blew  me,  hither  and 
thither,  like  a  rag,  and,  of  course,  I  was  falling 
lower  all  the  time,  but  not  straight  down.  I  fell 
at  last  into  the  sea,  quite  out,  and  clear  of  the  rocks. 
I  can  swim  very  well,  but  I  could  not  swim  at  once; 
If  my  clothes  had  not  buoyed  me  up  I  suppose 
I  should  have  drowned.  When  I  could  strike 
out  I  did  so,  and  I  swam  a  good  way.  I  was 
tired  out  when  a  boat  picked  me  up — a  small  cargo- 
boat.  I  told  them  I  had  swam  out  too  far  and  been 
caught  by  a  current;  that  I  was  not  of  Shetland,  but 
of  Scotland,  which  was  true;  but  had  been  staying 
in  Shetland — that  was  true  too^  The  boat  was 
Norse,  but  the  skipper  talked  English  quite  well. 
He  said  they  were  bound  for  Dundee,  and  thence 
home  to  Norway,  and  I  asked  him  to  give  me  pass- 
age to  Dundee;  I  had  five  or  six  pounds  in  my 
pocket,  and  I  showed  them  to  him.  He  said  he 
would  not  want  any  payment — he  was  a  very  nice 
young  man,  kind  and  respectful.  When  I  insisted 
on  paying,  he  said  a  pound  would  cover  all  I  should 
eat.  The  rings  on  my  fingers  were  worth  hundreds 
of  pounds,  but  I  had  no  need  to  think  of  selling 
them  yet.  At  Dundee  I  was  not  far  from  my  own 
house,  left  to  me  by  my  father.  And  I  went  there. 
It  was  the  middle  of  afternoon  when  I  arrived  and 
all  the  doors  and  windows  were  open,  and  no  one 
seemed  to  be  about.  I  went  in  from  the  garden 
through  the  door  of  my  own  little  sitting-room,  and 
in  a  queer  Indian  cabinet  I  knew  I  should  find  the 
key  of  my  bureau.  The  cabinet  Itself  was  locked, 
but  the  lock  was  weak  and  poor,  and  I  easily  prised 


I02  THE  TIDEWAY 

it  open  with  the  penknife  on  my  writing  table.  In 
the  bureau  in  a  secret  drawer  were  the  keys  of  my 
safe.  The  safe  was  not  in  that  room,  but  in  what 
had  been  my  father's  bedroom,  and  it  was  hidden 
behind  the  oak  panels,  and  no  one  but  myself  knew 
where  it  was,  or  how  to  open  the  panel.  Well,  I 
kept  upstairs,  and  met  no  one.  That  was  natural 
enough,  as  no  servant  ever  used  the  front  stairs,  and 
I  think  they  were  all  out  In  the  hayfield  amusing 
themselves " 

"But  had  no  one  seen  you  before  you  reached  your 
house?" 

"Several  people,  but  I  had  dressed  myself  in  very 
deep,  but  very  common  mourning,  such  as  a  crofter's 
widow  would  wear,  and  my  face  was  covered  with 
thick  crape.  It  was  only  at  the  little  station  any- 
one saw  me  even  thus.  Thence  I  walked  through 
the  wood,  and  met  no  one ;  the  wood  runs  right  up 
to  the  shrubberies.  Well,  in  my  safe  I  knew  I 
should  find  plenty  of  money.  And  I  took  it  all — 
about  six  hundred  pounds;  also  I  took  all  my  dia- 
monds, and  some  splendid  rubles  that  had  been  my 
mother's.  I  took  it  all.  I  was  determined  to  dis- 
appear, and  I  would  not  tell  my  agents  or  bankers. 
I  was  ashamed.  I  went  back  to  Dundee  and  took 
a  passage  to  Norway.  But  I  could  not  bear  the 
high  cliffs  and  the  sea.  It  made  me  think  of  Shet- 
land. I  stayed  a  while  at  Bergen.  Thence  I  went 
to  Christiania,  where  I  sold  a  very  few  diamonds. 
Thence  to  Stockholm,  where  I  sold  more.  Thence 
to  Copenhagen,  where  I  sold  more.  After  a  while 
I  went  to  Paris,  where  I  sold  a  lot.  There  I  read 
by  chance  of  the  Duneshore,  and  made  up  my  mind 
to  go  and  see  it.  I  seem  to  stifle  away  from  the 
sea,  and  yet  I  could  not  abide  any  sea  where  there 
are  rocks  and  high  precipices.  I  did  not  see  why 
my  money  should  not  last,  I  had  so  many  jewels. 


THE  LADY  OF  THE  DUNESHORE    103 

Of  course,  I  have  plenty  left — plenty  of  money,  I 
mean,  and  of  jewels,  too.  I  spent  about  three  hun- 
dred pounds  furnishing  this  little  house,  and  it  only 
cost  five  hundred  to  buy;  to  live  here  costs  only 
about  three  hundred  a  year,  not  much  more.  It 
has  not  tired  me  to  tell  you  all  this,  it  has  rested 
me.  I  am  not  a  secret  person  by  nature,  and  all  this 
secrecy  was  a  strain.  I  am  glad  to  be  at  the  end 
of  it.  Now,  please,  how  did  you  find  out  anything 
about  me?" 

"Anton  found  out.  He  must  tell  you  himself. 
It  is  rather  a  strange  story,  so  simple  and  yet  so 
unlikely.  When  I  came  here  that  first  day,  I  had 
not  the  least  idea  who  you  were;  Anton  knew,  or 
suspected,  but  he  never  told  me." 

"Why  did  you  come?" 

"To  see  you  for  myself.  I  knew  you  could  be  no 
ordinary  person." 

"Why  not?" 

"Because  Anton  would  not  have  gone  away  at  the 
bidding  of  an  ordinary  person." 

"I  never  bade  him  go  away.  I  only  said  that  I 
did  not  wish  to  see  him  again." 

"That  was  civil!" 

"It  was  not  civil  or  uncivil.    It  was  true." 

"And  I  know  why  you  wouldn't  let  him  come 
again.  I  did  not  dare  to  ask  him,  but  I  knew.  That 
was  why  I  came  here.    You  were  afraid  of  him." 

"And  of  myself." 

"Exactly.  Now  you  need  not  be  afraid.  There 
is  no  great  harm  in  being  a  Princess,  though  it  bores 
me  to  pieces  at  times."  { 

Sylvia's  face  again  flushed;  she  liked  the  Princess, 
and  yet  she  was  also  saying  things  that  the  girl 
disliked. 

"Will  you  tell  me,"  Princess  Rudolf  asked,  who 
saw  that  she  had  annoyed  the  girl,  and  wanted  to 


104  THE  TIDEWAY 

change  the  subject,  "how  It  was  that  there  was  so 
much  money  in  your  safe.  Six  hundred  pounds  seems 
a  good  lot  to  have  in  notes  and  cash  in  a  safe." 

"I  always  kept  a  good  deal.  There  is  no  bank 
very  near  the  House  of  Carstairs,  and  it  gave 
my  people  trouble  paying  them  by  check.  I  paid 
wages  in  notes  or  cash.  Then  we  were  going 
abroad,  and  I  had  the  money  for  that.  It  seemed 
very  odd  taking  it  away  and  slinking  off  with  it  like 
that — as  if  I  were  stealing  if  from  myself.  I  won- 
der how  Prince  Anton  came  to  know  who  I  was." 

"Ah,  he  must  tell  you.  Of  course  he  only  sus- 
pected at  first.  The  confirmation  of  his  suspicions 
came  about  very  strangely.  What  /  wonder  is  how 
that  other  man  got  away,  why  he  wasn't  arrested 
at  once." 

"I  do  not  even  know  whether  it  Is  a  crime  in  the 
eyes  of  the  law  to  do — what  he  did — to  save  one's 
own  life.  But  in  a  newspaper  in  Dundee  I  read 
about  my  own  disappearance  and  his.  We  had  been 
seen  going  to  the  rocks,  and  after  that  no  one  saw  us 
together.  After — after  I  was  gone  he  must  have 
climbed  up,  by  the  knots  in  the  rope.  He  never 
went  back  to  Duners,  but  walked  to  a  little  place 
called  St.  Olaf's  and  there  he  hired  a  boat  that  took 
him  to  the  island  called  the  Mainland.  He  took 
passage  thence  from  Lenvich  to  Thurso,  and  after 
that  all  trace  of  him  was  lost.  It  was  in  the  morn- 
ing the — thing — happened.  It  was  only  quite  late 
in  the  afternoon  they  began  to  search  about,  and 
finally  they  found  the  rope,  and  saw  that  it  had  been 
cut  with  a  knife.  It  seemed  very  grim  to  read  of 
their  efforts  to  find  my  body." 

"Why  did  you  call  yourself  Madame  Petersen?" 

"It  was  the  name  of  the  cargo-boat  that  picked  me 
up,  and  I  took  it.  When  I  opened  an  account  at  a 
bank  here  they  asked  me  to  sign  my  name  in  a  book, 


THE  LADY  OF  THE  DUNESHORE    105 

and  I  had  to  invent  a  Christian  name  and  I  chose  Ida 
at  haphazard — it  was  the  name  of  the  heroine  in  a 
novel  I  had  been  reading  that  very  day." 

"And,  if  Anton  had  not  found  you  out,  would  you 
have  lived  here  always,  buried  alive  on  the  Dune- 
shore?" 

"I  suppose  so.     I  meant  to." 

"And  your  property — did  you  never  think  what 
would  become  of  it?"  

"No.  On  my  marriage  I  settled  it  all  upon  him. 
He  had  very  little  of  his  own,  just  the  little  estate 
in  Shetland  and  scarcely  anything  besides.  It  didn't 
matter:  I  was  rich,  for  the  estates  that  went  with 
the  title  were  the  least  part  of  what  my  father  had: 
my  mother's  estates,  and  my  grandmother's,  he  could 
leave  to  me  and  he  did.  Even  though  I  was  dead 
Lord  Solway  would  have  no  claim  to  them.  I  had 
the  right  to  do  as  I  chose  with  them — " 

There  came  a  ring  and  she  stopped  talking  hastily. 

"My  dear,"  said  the  Princess,  "it  is  only  the  lit- 
tle doctor,  and  if  I  were  not  myself,  he  would  give 
me  a  wigging.  I  know  he  will  think  I  have  let  you 
talk  too  much.  That's  one  good  in  being  a  princess, 
one  doesn't  get  wiggings — not  from  doctors." 

But  later  on  the  doctor  told  her  Highness  that  his 
patient  was  altogether  better. 

"I  find  in  her,"  he  explained,  "the  removal  of  an 
incubus.  The  incubus  had  not  been  removed  by  her 
previous  recovery.  The  collapse  itself  ended  the 
strain — ended  it  in  collapse.  And  that  collapse 
might  have  ended  everything — her  life,  or  her  rea- 
son. But  it  did  not.  Physically  and  mentally  she 
is  strong,  and  her  youth  and  strength  saved  her. 
But  as  she  recovered  I  noted  the  presence  of  that 
which  I  call  an  incubus.  I  noted  it  with  misgiving: 
for  if  it  remained  her  recovery  would  never  have 
been  sure  and  complete.     Now  I  am  convinced  that 


io6  THE  TIDEWAY 

it  has  been  removed.  It  strikes  me  that  your  High- 
ness has  helped  her  as  much  as  either  doctor  or 
nurse." 

Princess  Rudolf  doubted  very  much  if  he  would 
have  said  as  much  had  she  not  been  the  wife  of  the 
little  doctor's  Sovereign.  But  she  had  no  objection 
to  compliments,  and  she  happened  to  believe  that 
he  was  right. 

"All  the  same,"  she  told  her  son  that  night,  "you 
must  not  see  her  yet,  nor  Lord  Solway  either.  Let 
her  grow  used  to  the  knowledge  that  you  are  here." 

In  reality  she  was  much  less  patient  than  her  son: 
and  he  had  been  to  the  Chalet  Ferdinand  many 
times  before  he  had  any  satisfactory  response  to 
give  to  her  eager  demand. 

"Anything  to  report?" 


OLD  WINE  AND  NEW  BOTTLES 


I  DARESAY,"  said  Raymond  d'Argnes  to  himself, 
"it  isn't  the  proper  thing," — but  he  did  it. 
That  is  to  say  he  sat  down  upon  one  of  the  benches 
in  the  Champs  Elysees.  And  he  sat  down  because 
he  found  himself  more  tired  by  a  very  moderate 
amount  of  walking  than  he  had  expected. 

It  will  be  obvious  from  his  uncertainty  as  to  the 
correctness  or  incorrectness  of  sitting  down  in  the 
Champs  Elysees  that  he  was  not  Parisian;  nor  was 
he,  in  spite  of  his  name,  French.  Though  his  fam- 
ily came  from  Normandy  it  was  English :  if  eight 
centuries  and  a  half  in  England  could  make  it  so. 

He  sat  down  and  laid  on  the  seat  beside  him  the 
walking  stick  that  he  had  found  more  necessary  than 
he  had  thought  it  would  be.  He  turned  to  his  right 
and  looked  upon  the  long  perspective  of  the  most 
splendid  avenue  in  any  city  in  the  world  as  it  curved 
up  to  the  magnificent  Arch  of  Triumph,  beneath 
which  only  troops  returning  from  victory  may  pass. 
Turning  to  his  left  he  saw  the  avenue  end  in  the 
vast  open  space  that  has  had  so  many  names — Place 
Louis  Quinze,  Place  de  la  Paix  de  la  Revolution 
and,  at  last  and  still,  Place  de  la  Concorde — in 
whose  midst  stands  the  Egyptian  monolith  on  the 
spot  where  the  ancient  monarch  of  France  was  mar- 
tyred. 

Then  he  glanced  with  half-inattentive  eyes  at  the 
stream  of  folk  passing  either  way.  Of  the  men,  at 
least  nine  in  ten  were  French  soldiers,  and  it  seemed 
to  him  that  nine  in  ten  were  wounded.  There  was 
a  real  poilu,  not  absolutely  young  but  seeming  older 
by  reason  of  his  hirsute  and  shaggy  chin  and  neck. 

107 


io8  THE  TIDEWAY 

But  there  were  many  more  to  whom  the  term  pollu 
could  only  be  applied  generally,  quite  young,  smart, 
well-shorn  and  shaven,  nearly  all  handsome,  all  with 
expressive  faces.  The  women,  except  the  very  poor- 
est, were  almost  all  in  mourning;  but  Raymond 
thought  with  relief  that  in  France  deep  mourning 
is  worn  for  relations  that  in  England  would  not  be 
considered  very  near. 

Two  ladies  passed  quite  near  his  seat  at  a  moment 
when  there  was  a  sort  of  gap  in  the  stream;  and 
perhaps  for  half  a  minute  no  one  else  had  gone  by 
down  the  broad  walk,  though  there  were  strollers 
under  the  trees  behind  him. 

The  ladies  might  be  mother  and  daughter;  the 
elder  not  more  than  forty-five,  if  so  much;  the 
younger  twenty,  perhaps.  Both  were  rather  tall, 
and  there  was  a  resemblance  in  their  figures,  as  in 
their  walk  and  manner,  as  frequently  happens  in  the 
case  of  members  of  the  same  family  who  are  con- 
stantly in  each  other's  company.  They  were  talk- 
ing, as  they  passed,  and  their  voices,  he  thought, 
had  the  same  tone ;  but  that  might  have  been  his 
fancy,  for  they  did  not  speak  loudly.  They  spoke 
French,  and  French  they  undoubtedly  were. 

The  elder  lady  glanced  at  him,  not  as  she  went 
by,  but  just  before  they  came  up,  and  he  could  see 
that  she  noted  he  was  wounded.  For  a  fraction  of 
a  moment  his  eyes  and  the  lady's  met,  then  she 
turned  hers  away;  but  even  in  that  instant  she  some- 
how conveyed  the  impression  of  sympathy  and  re- 
spect. It  did  not  amount  to  a  smile,  even  the  grav- 
est smile;  it  was  rather  like  an  effort  to  restrain  a 
motherly  benison.  The  younger  lady,  he  imagined, 
had  not  noticed  his  presence  at  all.  His  eyes  still 
followed  them  when  they  had  gone  by.  Then  his 
eyes  dropped,  and  he  saw  on  the  ground,  six  paces 
from  his  seat,  a  very  small  case,  probably  a  card- 


OLD  WINE  AND  NEPV  BOTTLES     109 

case.  He  had  no  doubt  at  all  to  whom  it  belonged; 
only  one  of  the  two  ladies  could  have  dropped  it. 
It  had  not  been  there  before  they  passed.  He  im- 
mediately got  up,  and  having  picked  it  up,  went 
after  them.  The  case  was  quite  small,  of  polished 
leather,  hard,  and  with  a  fine  grain  in  it,  and  dyed 
green — almost  like  the  old-fashioned  shagreen;  in 
one  corner  was  a  tiny  coronet. 

The  ladies  walked  quickly,  and  he  had  to  do  the 
same,  but  he  found  his  knee  more  painful  and  he 
limped  a  little.  Still  he  did  not  doubt  he  would 
overtake  them.  Unfortunately  it  began  to  rain  and 
quite  heavily.  He  could  see  the  two  ladies  in  front, 
but  he  saw  also  that  they  were  going  to  take  a  taxi. 
He  felt  he  must  do  the  same,  and  so  looked  about 
for  one. 

A  dozen  were  hurrying  towards  the  Arch  of  Tri- 
umph, but  all  were  occupied;  several  passed  in  the 
other  direction,  but  they  also  were  occupied.  The 
two  ladies  had  found  one  free  and  had  taken  it. 

"I  must  catch  them,"  he  thought,  "perhaps  there's 
money  in  this  case." 

Presently  a  taxi  swerved  in  towards  the  curb,  and 
Raymond  saw  that  an  observant  French  soldier  had 
understood  his  predicament,  and  had  signalled  it. 
The  young  cuirassier  smiled  and  Raymond  thanked 
him. 

"  'Tis  nothing,"  said  the  soldier.  "Monsieur  was 
half  occupied  looking  after  the  two  ladies  who  went 
away  in  the  other  taxi.  I  happened  to  see  this  one 
coming  and  free."  He  opened  the  door  and  shut  it, 
with  another  pleasant  smile,  when  Raymond  got  in, 
then  he  saluted. 

"Follow  that  other  taxi,"  the  cuirassier  said  to 
the  driver,  "monsieur  wishes  to  overtake  it."  With 
a  final  smile  he  turned  av/ay,  quite  happy  in  the  be- 
lief that  he  was  assisting  at  a  little  romance.     The 


no  THE  TIDEJVAY 

driver  had  not  argued,  he  did  not  object.  "There 
are  forty  taxis — which  taxi?"  but  pushed  down  his 
label  and  made  off.  He  picked  up  the  other  taxi, 
and  soon  drew  near  enough  to  note  the  number. 
Then  perhaps  he  thought  he  might  as  well  not  make 
the  journey  too  short;  possibly  he  could  have  over- 
taken it  sooner.  It  turned  at  the  Place  de  la  Con- 
corde towards  the  Hotel  Clisson,  and  there  were 
many  others  making  the  same  sweep  to  the  left.  It 
turned  again  left,  towards  the  Madeleine,  where 
there  was  much  more  traffic.  Passing  the  big 
church,  it  took  the  left  still  and  went  swiftly  along 
the  Boulevard  Malesherbes,  where  the  traffic,  still 
considerable,  was  not  so  great,  and  the  pursued  taxi 
was  easier  to  pick  out.  The  shower  had  stopped, 
and  the  glistening  pavement  was  no  longer  wetted 
with  heavy  splashes  of  rain.  At  the  open  place  in 
front  of  the  Church  of  St.  Augustine  the  taxi  con- 
taining the  two  ladies  again  took  the  left,  and  bore 
uphill  towards  the  group  of  rather  solemn,  old-fash- 
ioned but  highly  respectable,  squares  of  tall  houses. 
Into  one  of  them  It  turned  and  drew  up  about  the 
middle  of  the  west  side. 

Raymond's  taxi  drew  In  just  behind  It;  he  got  out 
and  paid  the  man.  The  two  ladies  were  standing 
upon  the  still  wet  and  shining  pavement. 

"Claire,"  the  elder  lady  was  saying,  "have  you 
any  money?  I  had  some  in  my  card-case,  but  I 
can't  find  it.   ..." 

"Madame,"  said  Raymond,  limping  forward,  "it 
is  here.  Madame  dropped  it  in  the  Champs  Elysees 
soon  after  passing  the  place  where  I  was  sitting, 
and  I  saw  it  and  .    .    .  here  it  is." 

"And  you  have  taken  so  much  trouble  to  follow 
us,"  said  the  lady,  smiling,  and  her  smile  was  just 
what  Raymond  expected — gracious,  friendly  and 
sincere. 


OLD  WINE  AND  NEW  BO  TTLES     1 1 1 

"That,"  declared  the  young  man,  smiling,  too, 
"was  common  honesty." 

"Perhaps.     But  extreme  courtesy." 

She  had  taken  the  little  case  from  his  hand,  and 
had  drawn  from  it  a  note  and  offered  it  to  the  taxi- 
driver. 

"Madame,  it  is  for  a  hundred  francs.  I  have  not 
change  enough." 

"Would  you  allow  me  to  pay  him,  madame?" 
Raymond  suggested.  And  he  stepped  forward  and 
did  so  without  waiting  a  verbal  permission. 

"And  now,"  said  the  lady,  "that  you  have  paid 
him,  comes  my  common  honesty.  I  must  pay  you. 
Will  you  come  in  and  I  will  get  change?" 

Raymond  was  delighted,  and  followed  the  two 
ladies  to  the  door  of  the  large,  somewhat  austere 
looking  house.  Over  the  entrance  was  a  shield  of 
arms,  surmounted  by  the  same  coronet  as  he  had 
seen  upon  the  card-case.  When  he  had  rung,  the 
door  was  opened  by  an  aged  man-servant,  and  all 
three  passed  in.  The  hall  was  wide  and  high,  and 
flagged  with  squares  of  black  and  white  marble; 
the  stairs  were  very  broad  and  shallow;  one  could 
easily  have  ridden  up  them.  At  the  head  of  them 
was  a  gallery  hung  with  portraits,  large  and  impos- 
ing, evidently  representing  distinguished  person- 
ages, mostly  in  court  dress.  From  the  gallery  sev- 
eral wide  and  tall  doors  opened,  and  through  one 
of  them  Madame  led  the  way  into  a  spacious  salon. 

"And  now,"  said  the  lady,  "let  me  pay  you  my 
debt  of  thanks.  .  .  .  The  other  little  debt  I  could 
have  paid  downstairs,  for  old  Jean  has  always  plenty 
of  money !  But  I  preferred  to  give  you  the  further 
trouble  of  coming  up  here  that  T  might  thank  you 
less  hurriedly." 

"What  I  did  was  nothing,"  protested  Raymond. 
"My  only  fear  was  lest  my  taxi  should  miss  yours. 


112  THE  TIDEWAY 

If  it  had,  I  would  have  looked  for  your  card  In- 
side." 

"But  the  address  is  not  on  the  cards — only  Hotel 
d'Argnes." 

Raymond's  eyes  lighted  with  a  look  of  surprise. 

"You  say,  madame,"  he  asked,  "that  this  house  is 
the  Hotel  d'Argnes?" 

"Yes;  I  am  Madame  d'Argnes." 

"That  is  odd,"  he  said  smiling,  "for  if  my  mother 
were  in  France  she  would  also  be  Madame 
d'Argnes." 

"Really !  That  is  interesting.  But — if  you  are 
not  in  a  great  hurry — will  you  not  sit  down?  You 
ought  not  to  stand  long,  for  I  see  you  are  wounded." 

"Oh,  I  am  nearly  quite  well.  I  was  wounded  in 
the  knee  weeks  ago.  I  am  in  hospital  at  Versailles, 
and  they  gave  me  leave  to  come  to  Paris  to  see  my 
half-brother,  who  is  in  an  embassy,  but  I  found  he 
had  gone  to  Chantilly;  so  I  was  strolling  about." 

The  old  butler  had  reappeared,  and  was  setting 
out  little  tables  for  tea. 

"Do  tell  me,  if  it  is  not  too  inquisitive,"  begged 
madame,  "about  Madame  d'Argnes.  I  never  knew 
I  had  an  English  prototype." 

"Well — d'Argnes  is  the  surname  of  my  family. 
My  half-brother's  name  is  Furnival." 

"I  have  met  him,"  she  interrupted,  "he  is  much 
older  than  you." 

"Oh,  yes.     Eight  years  older." 

"Well,  monsieur,  our  surname  is  not  d'Argnes. 
It  is  de  la  Mer.  But  my  husband's  title  is  Count 
d'Argnes." 

"That  again  is  odd,  for  the  founder  of  our  fam- 
ily was  Count  d'Argnes.  He  was  an  uncle  of  Will- 
iam the  Conqueror,  and  came  with  him  to  England, 
and  our  surname  has  been  d'Argnes  ever  since.  But 
his  lands  and  castle  in  Normandy  were  lost  to  him 
before  he  came  to  England." 


OLD  WINE  AND  NEW  BOTTLES    113 

"It  is  really  strange  and  very  Interesting.  But, 
monsieur,  I  am  afraid  we  are  not  relations,  for  our 
family  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  reigning;  house  of 
Normandy.  It  was  only  in  the  sixteenth  century 
that  the  Chateau  d'Argnes  was  granted  by  Francis 
I  to  one  of  the  de  la  Mers;  and  now  it  does  not 
belong  to  us,  but  is,  as  perhaps  you  know,  a  national 
monument." 

"I'm  sorry,"  said  Raymond,  "that  we  are  not  re- 
lations." 

"Papa,"  observed  mademoiselle,  "will  be  disap- 
pointed. 

"My  husband,"  said  madame,  "is  a  great  gene- 
alogist. Jean,  will  you  tell  the  Count  that  tea  is 
ready?" 

"Mother,"  remarked  mademoiselle  in  excellent 
English,  "could  not  live  without  her  tea.  Papa 
rather  despises  it,  and  says  it  does  away  with  any 
advantage  in  having  a  good  cook,  since  it  spoils 
your  dinner." 

"It  never  spoils  mine,"  said  Raymond. 

A  distinguished-looking,  rather  lean,  gentleman 
of  about  sixty  came  in,  and  the  Countess  said  to 
him : 

"I  have  an  interesting  introduction  to  make — 
Monsieur  d'Argnes,  Monsieur  d'Argnes." 

The  Count  bowed,  smiled,  and  held  out  a  thin 
hand  cordially. 

"But  now,  Henriette,"  he  begged,  "will  you  ex- 
plain?" 

"My  husband,"  declared  the  Countess,  "has  no 
patience,  he  always  reads  the  last  chapter  of  a  novel 
first." 

"I  see  no  use  In  suffering  anxiety  concerning  peo- 
ple who  never  existed.  Claire,  can  yoii  explain  the 
mystery?" 

"It  seems  to  me,  papa,  that  this  gentleman  is  a 
real  d'Argnes,  and  you  only  a  nominal  one." 


114  THE  TIDEWAY 

Then  the  Countess  gave  the  explanation,  conclud- 
ing with:  "But  after  all,  we  are  not  relations.  Is 
it  not  a  pity?" 

"Wait  a  bit,"  said  the  Count,  "I  know  all  about 
it.  I  know  all  about  William,  Count  d'Argnes,  the 
Conqueror's  uncle.  He  belongs  to  history.  And 
also  I  know  about  the  English  family  of  the  same 
name,  who  belong " 

"Only  to  Devonshire,"  laughed  Raymond. 
"When  my  Uncle  Robert  wants  to  tease  my  father 
he  says  we  are  famous  for  never  having  done  any- 
thing in  particular  for  eight  centuries  and  a  half." 

"I  am  quite  sure,"  continued  the  Count,  "that  my 
wife  is  mistaken  in  saying  we  are  not  relations.  Our 
name  of  de  la  Mer  is  the  English  name  Delamer, 
and  one  of  our  family  married  an  English  lady, 
Adelais  d'Argnes,  of  the  Devonshire  family." 

"So,"  observed  the  Countess  demurely,  "we  are 
cousins.  I  began,"  she  continued  wickedly,  "our  ac- 
quaintance in  a  cousinly  fashion  by  borrowing 
money." 

The  Count  looked  rather  shocked;  so  shocked 
that  his  wife  explained  matters  hastily. 

"Claire,"  he  remarked  presently,  "aren't  you 
stifled  in  that  long  coat?     Do  take  it  off." 

Mademoiselle  obeyed  and  displayed  a  white  nurs- 
ing dress. 

"Claire,"  her  mother  explained  to  Raymond, 
"nurses  in  one  of  the  hospitals  in  the  Champs 
Elysees;  to-day  her  time  was  up  at  three,  and  I  had 
gone  to  fetch  her  home  when  you  saw  me." 

"Tea,"  observed  the  Count,  "is  but  a  poor  sort 
of  hospitality.  I  hope,  Henriette,  you  will  make 
monsieur  stay  to  dinner." 

"I  believe,"  declared  mademoiselle,  "that  we  have 
been  wrong  all  the  time,  and  he  is  not  Monsieur 
d'Argnes  at  all." 

"Claire!"  cried  her  father. 


OLD  WINE  AND  NEW  BOTTLES     115 

"I've  been  reading  the  stars  (only  on  his  shoul- 
der, papa!)  and  I'm  sure  he  is  a  captain." 

"Unfortunately,"  said  the  young  man  in  a^  low 
voice,  "it  is  true,  I  should  not  be  a  captain  if  all 
my  friends  were  alive." 

"Ah,"  said  the  Countess,  almost  In  a  whisper, 
"the  sad,  sad  war." 

Again  Raymond  thought  how  tender  and  delicate 
was  the  little  glance  of  sympathy  she  gave  him,  how 
kindly,  how  motherly. 

His  promotion  had  cost  him  the  loss  of  the  best 
friend  he  had  ever  had. 

"Our  own  boy's  place  at  our  table,"  the  Countess 
said  gently,  "is  empty.  He  is  fighting  for  France. 
Will  you  not  take  his  place  to-night?" 

II 

Raymond  d'Argnes  was  sent  home  to  England, 
but  before  many  weeks  had  passed  he  was  back  in 
France;  not  in  Paris,  now,  but  in  the  fighting  line, 
at  a  point  where  the  English  and  French  troops 
nearly  overlapped.  From  England  he  had  written 
more  than  once  to  his  kind  friends  of  the  d'Argnes 
family,  and  his  photograph  stood  on  the  writing- 
table  of  the  Countess's  own  boudoir,  close  to  that 
of  her  own  son.  She  had  opened  her  heart  to  the 
young  English  officer :  he  was  just  what  she  admired, 
brave  and  quiet,  simple  and  gentle.  It  was  only 
from  English  newspapers  that  she  learned  how 
greatly  he  had  distinguished  himself.  The  Count 
had  brought  them  home. 

"There,"  he  observed.  "See  now,  what  your  cap- 
tain did !  And  not  a  word  about  it  to  us.  The  Vic- 
toria Cross  is  the  highest  reward  of  valor  the  Eng- 
lish have." 

"And  many  sergeants  and  corporals  have  won 
it,"  observed  Claire  with  demure  malice. 


ii6  THE  TIDEWAY 

"Oaire,"  cried  her  father,  "you  are  a  little 
Jacobin." 

"Claire,"  said  her  mother  carelessly,  "was  not  so 
taken  with  our  cousin  as  I  was." 

"It  is  only  married  ladies  of  forty-five  who  allow 
themselves  to  fall  in  love  at  first  sight  nowadays," 
said  the  Count,  with  almost  a  wink  at  his  daughter. 

"I  was  only  forty-three  last  Wednesday," 
pleaded  the  Countess,  "it  is  ungenerous  to  lean  upon 
a  fact  so  recent." 

"Apart  from  all  this  frivolity,"  said  Claire,  "are 
you  going  to  let  me  go  to  St.  Just?" 

St.  Just  was  a  town  in  the  north  of  France,  not 
forty  kilometers  from  the  fighting  lines.  There  was 
an  auxiliary  hospital  there,  under  the  auspices  of  the 
Women  of  France,  and  more  assistants  had  been 
asked  for.  The  head  of  the  Association  had  just 
called  and  requested  her  parents  to  allow  Claire  to 
fill  one  of  the  vacancies. 

The  Count  had  several  objections  to  the  plan;  he 
was  old-fashioned  and  it  was  not  in  accordance  with 
his  ideas  that  his  daughter  should  be  a  nurse  in  a 
hospital  far  from  home. 

Claire  was  not  at  all  sure  that  her  mother  would 
take  her  part,  and  sent  a  most  grateful  glance  to  her 
when  madame  said: 

"Adrien,  I  should  be  quite  of  jour  opinion  if 
Claire  had  to  go  and  live  in  a  hospital  of  which  we 
knew  nothing.  But  the  auxiliary  hospital  at  St.  Just 
is  really  a  Convent  of  Reparatrice  Nuns,  and  the 
Reverend  Mother  herself  is  an  old  schoolmate  of 
mine.  With  her  Claire  would  be  in  good  hands. 
Moreover,  if  you  do  not  wish  Claire  to  live  in  the 
convent,  she  might  stop  with  her  cousin,  Madame  de 
St.  Hilaire,  who  is  head  nurse  at  the  hospital.  She 
has  a  house  at  St.  Just  and  would  be  delighted  to 
have  Claire  with  her." 

"If  she  is  to  go,  it  certainly  would  be  better  for 


OLD  WINE  AND  NEW  BOTTLES     117 

Claire's  health  that  she  stay  with  Madame  St, 
Hilairc.  She  would  thus  have  change  of  scene  every 
day  and  some  pleasant  recreation.  To  tell  the  truth 
I  think  a  change  from  Paris,  after  more  than  a  year 
here,  would  do  Claire  good  rather  than  harm.  You 
know  she  was  never  here  for  so  long  a  time  in  her 
life  before." 

After  a  good  deal  of  discussion — the  Count 
rather  liked  discussion  and  hated  precipitancy — it 
was  settled  that  Claire  might  go. 

Ill 

One  night,  when  Claire  was  on  duty,  a  large 
convoy  of  wounded  was  brought  into  the  hospital 
at  St.  Just.  A  warning  had  come  earlier  in  the  week 
that  a  larger  number  than  usual  might  be  expected 
and  special  preparations  had  been  made.  Everyone 
was  very  busy;  stretchers  came  in  what  seemed  an 
unending  procession;  and  many  operations  had  to 
be  performed  at  once.  Most  of  the  cases  seemed 
serious  enough;  some  very  terrible. 

Claire  was  working  in  the  same  ward  with  Ste- 
phanie, her  hostess's  daughter,  and  they  were  both 
of  them  fully  occupied,  silent  and  business-like. 
Presently  Madame  de  St.  Hilaire,  herself,  came  into 
the  ward  and  said  to  her  daughter: 

"Claire  speaks  English  well,  does  she  not?  Yes! 
Well,  there  are  several  English  brought  in  with  our 
people,  and  I  have  been  able  to  put  all  together  in 
the  same  ward — the  Good  Shepherd  ward,  on  the 
ground  floor.  I  think  I  will  transfer  Claire  to  it, 
and  give  you  Marie  Duphot  here  instead.  Claire 
will  be  more  useful  there,  for  Marie  talks  no  Eng- 
lish." 

She  went  across  to  Marie  and  told  her  of  the  ar- 
rangement, taking  her  off  at  once. 

In  the  Good  Shepherd  ward  were  fifteen  beds, 


ii8  THE  TIDEWAY 

and  in  four  of  them  lay  wounded  English:  a  ser- 
geant, two  privates,  and  an  officer. 

"Here  they  are,"  said  Madame  de  St.  Hilalre  in 
a  low  voice,  "what  a  comfort  it  will  be  for  the  poor 
fellows  to  hear  their  own  language." 

At  first  Claire  only  spoke  a  few  words  to  each  by 
way  of  introducing  herself,  and  showing  them  that 
there  was  a  nurse  who  spoke  English,  and,  as 
madame  had  said,  they  seemed  immensely  pleased 
to  find  someone  whom  they  could  understand. 

It  was  the  officer  to  whom  she  came  last. 

"Captain  d'Argnes!"  she  exclaimed  as  soon  as 
she  saw  him. 

"Your  brother?"  cried  Madame  de  St.  Hilaire, 
thrown  off  her  guard  with  surprise.  "But  surely 
no!     He  is  an  English  officer,  is  he  not?" 

"Certainly.  But  he  has  our  name  and  we  know 
him." 

At  that  moment  one  of  the  soldiers,  the  first  she 
had  spoken  to,  called  to  Claire:  "Please,  Sister," 
he  said,  and  she  turned  at  once  and  went  to  him. 

"Madame!"  whispered  Raymond  to  the  head 
nurse,  "would  you  mind  bending  down,  I  want  to 
say  something  quickly." 

"Ah!  you  talk  French!"  said  madame,  doing  as 
he  had  asked. 

"Madame,  that  nurse's  brother  Is  here;  wounded 
badly,  I  fear — you  did  not  know?  He  was  brought 
in  with  me.  He  is  over  there,  in  that  bed  opposite. 
Do  not  let  her  find  him,  without  preparation.  He 
is  either  unconsious  or  asleep.  I  do  not  know 
which;  nor  how  badly  he  is  hit;  but  I  know  he  is 
Lieutenant  d'Argnes;  and  he  is  exactly  like  her,  still 
more  like  her  father,  only  very  boyish.  He  is  a 
cuirassier,  and  there  is  a  wounded  soldier  of  his 
regiment  here  too;  I  had  met  him  once  in  Paris,  and 
we  recognized  each  other  and  talked  a  little  at  the 


OLD  WINE  AND  NEW  BOTTLES     119 

dressing  station.  He  told  me  first  that  the  young 
officer  was  Lieutenant  d'Argnes — there  is  no  mis- 
take." 

"I  will  do  at  once  what  you  suggest.  Thank  you 
very  much  indeed,  monsieur.  But  how  are  you 
wounded  yourself?" 

"A  bit  of  shrapnel  in  my  lung.  Please,  madame, 
would  you  do  that  at  once?" 

"Yes,  I  will,  at  once.  But  you;  you  must  be  In 
horrible  pain." 

"Enough  to  satisfy  me ;  but  please.  ..." 

And  Madame  de  St.  Hllaire,  full  of  admiration 
for  the  courage  and  thoughtfulness  of  the  wounded 
man,  moved  across  to  where  the  French  lieutenant 
lay.  She  did  not  think,  so  far  as  she  could  judge, 
that  he  was  so  dangerously  wounded  as  the  English 
officer.  Nor  did  she  think  he  was  unconscious,  but 
only  dozing.  And  she  was  right.  As  she  stooped 
down  over  him  he  opened  his  eyes  and  smiled. 

"You  are  Monsieur  d'Argnes,  are  you  not?"  she 
asked  gently. 

"Yes,  of  the  Ninth  Cuirassiers." 

"I  know  your  friends.  I  am  Madame  de  St. 
Hllaire,  and  my  husband  and  I  are  old  friends  of 
your  father's.  A  relation  of  yours  is  nursing  here 
and  I  don't  want  her  to  see  you  suddenly.  Where 
is  your  wound?" 

"Only  in  my  hip.  But  I  lost  a  good  deal  of  blood, 
and  it  makes  me  weak.  So  I  doze  often.  Madame, 
I  know  which  relation  it  is.  For  I  have  heard  of 
Claire  being  under  your  care." 

"But  she  does  not  know  you  are  here,  I  do  not 
want   you   to   speak   to   her   till   I   have   told   her. 

And  madame  left  him  to  rejoin  his  namesake,  by 
whose  bed  Claire  was  now  again  standing.  She 
knew  already  where   Raymond  was  wounded,  and 


I20  THE  TIDEWAY 

that  It  was  very  dangerous.  But,  of  course,  she  was 
talking  cheerfully. 

"And  the  piece  of  shrapnel  has  not  been  removed 
yet?" 

"No,  mademoiselle.  It  is  too  firmly  fixed,  but 
the  doctors  say  it  may  loosen.  I  have  to  be  patient. 
They  dared  not  operate  at  the  dressing  station. 
Presently  your  doctors  may  see  their  way  to  do  so." 

"Claire,"  said  madame,  "go  and  get  him  some 
soup — what  you  English  call  beef  tea,  eh?" 

"I  have  seen  her  brother,"  she  went  on,  when 
Claire  had  gone.  "He  knows  she  is  here.  Now  I 
will  go  after  her  and  let  her  know.  If  patience  is 
to  cure  you,  my  dear  Captain,  you  will  do  well.' 


» 


IV 

Raymond  was  fully  aware  of  the  gravity  of  his 
condition,  though  he  said  nothing  about  it  and  bore 
his  greatest  sufferings  with  cheerful  patience.  What 
added  to  them  was  that  he  coughed  almost  inces- 
santly, and  each  cough  caused  real  agony.  It  might, 
however,  be  that  the  coughing  would  tend  to  dis- 
lodge the  piece  of  shrapnel  embedded  in  the  lung. 

It  had  entered  through  the  back,  and  there  was 
no  wound  in  front.  The  doctors  in  charge  of  the 
hospital  were  very  skillful,  and  only  too  willing  to 
operate,  and  indeed  attempted  to  do  so,  but  found 
it  impossible  to  remove  the  bit  of  shell  without  al- 
most certainly  fatal  risk  to  the  patient's  life.  The 
chances  were  all  against  his  recovery,  and  he  knew 
that  it  was  so.  So  did  all  about  him;  but  he  con- 
tinued to  be  thoroughly  cheerful,  and  gave  far  less 
trouble  than  many  a  man  only  superficially  wounded. 
His  doctors  and  nurses,  therefore,  soon  grew  very 
fond  of  him,  and  so  did  the  other  patients,  his 
neighbors. 


OLD  WINE  AND  NEW  BOTTLES     121 

The  young  cuirassier  who  had  arrived  at  the  same 
time  was  orderly  to  Lieutenant  d'Argnes,  and  was 
the  soldier  who  had  called  the  taxi  for  Raymond 
that  afternoon,  months  before,  in  the  Champs  Ely- 
sees.  He  was  wounded  in  one  foot,  but  soon  began 
hopping  about  the  ward,  the  foot  swathed  in  bulky 
bandages,  and  acting  as  "orderly  man."  He  was  a 
most  engaging  creature;  full  of  good  spirit,  and 
fuller  of  kindheartedness.  He  made  himself  gen- 
erally useful,  but  took  special  care  of  his  own  mas- 
ter, and  was  also  particularly  glad  to  do  anything 
for  the  English  captain  who  had  his  master's  name. 

There  were  two  regular  orderlies  in  the  ward, 
and  they  also  seemed  to  have  special  pleasure  in  at- 
tending to  Raymond,  not  only  because  he  was  more 
dangerously  wounded  than  any  other  patient  in  the 
ward,  but  also  because  he  was  a  stranger  in  a  strange 
land.  Of  these  two  orderlies  the  elder  was  about 
eight  and  twenty,  the  younger  not  more  than  nine- 
teen. 

"Monsieur,"  asked  Madame  de  St.  Hilaire  on 
the  morning  after  Raymond's  arrival,  "if  you  would 
rather  be  alone,  there  is  a  tiny  room  I  could  give 
you.  But  it  is  very  small,  and  it  is  not  specially 
cheerful,  for  it  has  but  a  small  window,  and  the 
trees  outside  make  it  rather  dark.  Of  course,  you 
would  be  quieter,  but  perhaps  you  might  find  it  less 
cheerful." 

"Yes,  madame,  I  think  I  would.  And  I  like  to 
see  my  neighbors  here.  Thank  you  so  much  for 
thinking  of  it,  but  I  would  rather  stay  where  I  am." 

Madame  de  St.  Hilaire  hesitated  a  moment,  then 
said: 

"It  is  our  custom  to  write  to  the  friends  of  any 
patients  who  cannot  write  themselves.  Should  you 
like  us  to  do  so  for  you?" 

"I  believe  I  could  write — though  not  a  very  long 


122  THE  TIDEWAY 

letter.  Perhaps  you  would  also  write  to  my  mother. 
I  will  give  you  the  address,  and  tell  her  if  she  would 
be  allowed  to  come  here.  You  will  not,  I  am  sure, 
frighten  her;  but  she  would  much  rather  know  the 
exact  truth.  And  the  exact  truth  is  that  I  shall 
probably  not  get  over  this." 

"I  will  certainly  write.  Your  mother,  of  course, 
knows  French  like  yourself?  Yes,  I  thought  so. 
But  I  cannot  tell  her  that  I  think  you  will  probably 
not  get  over  this,  for  I  have  a  conviction  that  you 
will.  I  have  been  doing  this  work  for  fifteen  months 
now,  and  I  have  almost  always  been  right;  even 
sometimes  when  the  doctors  thought  there  was 
hardly  any  hope,  and  that  is  not  their  opinion  now. 
I  have  also  to  write  to  the  other  Madame  d'Argnes, 
for  Henri  had  a  hemorrhage  early  his  morning, 
and  he  is  not  so  well.  Claire  knows;  it  happened 
before  her  night-duty  had  ended." 

When  she  perceived  how  this  news  troubled  Ray- 
mond she  was  sorry  she  had  told  him. 

"I  had  understood  from  Claire,"  she  said,  "that 
you  did  not  know  Henri." 

"No,  I  do  not.  But  he  looks  such  a  boy,  it  seems 
pitiful  that  he  should  suffer  so  much." 

"But  you,"  said  the  woman  smiling,  "you  do  not 
look  a  very  old  man." 

"I  am  six  and  twenty." 

A  little  later,  when  the  elder  of  the  two  orderlies 
was  attending  to  him,  Raymond  asked: 

"How  is  he?     Monsieur  d'Argnes,  I  mean." 

"Oh,  just  the  same.  No  worse,  if  another 
hemorrhage  does  not  occur.  And  one  hopes  there 
will  be  no  other.  He  does  not  fidget,  but  lies  abso- 
lutely still,  and  that  is  a  great  thing." 

Raymond  perceived  by  his  voice  and  his  whole 
manner  that  he  was  well-bred.  "You  yourself  are 
a  soldier — in  the  Chasseurs  a  pied,  are  you  not?" 


OLD  WINE  AND  NEW  BOTTLES     123 

"I  was  with  my  regiment  in  the  Argonne,  but  lost 
my  right  eye,  quite  at  the  beginning  of  the  war. 
This  is  a  glass  one.     Now  I  am  doing  this  work." 

"Monsieur,"  Raymond  asked  in  a  still  lower 
voice,  "has  he — Monsieur  d'Argnes — seen  a 
priest  r 

"Ah I    You  are  a  Catholic?" 

"No.  But  half  the  men  in  my  regiment  are  Irish, 
and  Catholic,  and  I  know  that  to  see  a  priest  is  what 
they  think  of  most  when  they  are  even  a  little 
wounded.  I  will  tell  you  the  truth :  I  have  seen  so 
much  in  this  war,  that  if  I  understood  more  about  it, 
I  should  like  to  be  a  Catholic  myself." 

"Monsieur,  I  am  myself  a  priest,  a  monk  too.  I 
don't  look  much  of  a  monk  in  this  tunic,  do  I?  And 
the  other — the  young  orderly  (he  is  not  strictly  an 
orderly,  but  what  we  call  a  stretcher-bearer) — he  is 
to  be  a  priest,  too.  He  is  what  we  call  a  seminarian ; 
only  now  the  war  has  come  to  interrupt  his  studies; 
but  I  do  not  think  these  works  of  charity  he  is  doing 
will  injure  him." 

"What  a  beautiful  face  he  has;  not  handsome,  but 
with  a  singular  expression  of  holiness." 

"Yes,  he  is  a  good  boy.  But,  monsieur,  do  you 
know  that  it  makes  you  cough  to  talk,  and  that  I 
should  not  allow  it?" 

"I'm  not  sure  that  it  does  make  me  cough  more. 
It  takes  my  mind  off,  and  the  cough  comes  from  a 
sort  of  irritation." 

The  young  priest  thought:  "A  sort  of  irritation. 
If  I  had  a  jagged  bit  of  shrapnel  in  my  lung  I  won- 
der if  I  should  call  it  a  sort  of  irritation.  One  is 
always  at  school,  and  the  Schoolmaster  sets  many 
different  pupil-teachers  over  one." 

By  the  time  Madame  d'Argnes  arrived  from 
Paris,  Raymond  was  much  worse;  her  own  boy  not 
at  all  worse,  if  not  decidedly  better.     She  grieved  to 


T24  THE  TIDEWAY 

see  the  young  Englishman  in  so  grave  a  condition, 
and  her  son  seemed  full  of  interest  about  him. 

"Henri,"  she  said  gently,  "he  is  interested  in  you, 
too,  and  he  asked  a  question  about  you,  just  as  you 
are  asking  questions  about  him." 

"Claire  says  he  is  always  asking  her  about  me." 

"Yes.  But  this  question  he  did  not  ask  Claire. 
She  does  not  know." 

"Well,  what  did  he  ask?" 

"He  wanted  to  know  if  you  had  seen  a  priest." 

"Mamma,"  answered  the  lad,  "I  have  seen  thou- 
sands of  priests."     And  he  gave  a  little  laugh. 

"Yes.     But  you  know  quite  well  what  he  means." 

"Is  he  a  bigotf" 

"He  is  not  even  a  Catholic." 

"Isn't  that  odd?  I  can't  understand  not  being 
a  Catholic.     But  then,  I  am  French." 

"And  yet  you  only  think  it  a  joke  when -" 

"Not  a  joke  at  all,  Mamma,"  laughed  Henri, 
"just  the  opposite.  It  is  a  very  bad  joke  to  die; 
and  it  is  when  one  has  to  do  that  that  a  priest  be- 
comes necessary.     By  and  by." 

"That  bad  joke  of  dying — we  all  have  to  make 


it." 


"Some  time,  yes.  But  there's  no  hurry.  I'm  only 
twenty-one." 

"My  little  Henri,  I  hope  you  will  live  seventy 
years." 

"At  ninety  I  shall  send  for  a  priest — on  my  birth- 
day.    I  promise." 

"I  hope  you  will  not  wait  till  so  many  years  after 
I  shall  have  made  your  bad  joke.  But  I  think  if 
you  did,  you  would  be  ashamed  to  do  it  then.  Do 
you  think  Christ  only  wants  dotards?  You  would 
think  it  mean  to  offer  Him  your  dotage  after  keep- 
ing all  the  good  years  for  yourself." 

"Mamma !"  said  the  lad,  still  teasing  her,  "I  will 


OLD  WINE  AND  NEW  BOTTLES     125 

send  for  a  priest — even  if  I  am  quite  well — the  day 
Captain  d'Argnes  sends  for  one." 

V 

When  Raymond's  mother  arrived  he  seemed  to 
her  less  gravely  ill  than  she  had  feared  to  find  him. 
But  she  soon  understood  that  he  was  much  worse 
than  she  had  feared.  No  operation  had  been  pos- 
sible, and  he  was  much  weaker.  Almost  all  food, 
even  the  lightest,  made  him  sick,  and  he  was  much 
weaker.  The  cough  still  continued  and  shook  him 
to  pieces.  He  could  talk  very  little,  though  he  could 
read,  and  she  often  sat  silently  knitting  by  his  side 
while  he  read. 

One  morning  while  the  doctors  and  nurses  were 
changing  his  dressings,  she  went  to  the  chapel  of 
the  convent  and  knelt  down  to  pray  there.  At  the 
other  end  of  the  little  church  a  nun  was  kneeling 
before  the  altar  of  the  Blessed  Virgin.  Presently, 
a  bell  rang  and  the  Sister  rose,  and  came  down  the 
church,  passing  close  to  Madame  d'Argnes.  As  she 
went  by  she  bent  her  head  in  a  courteous  salutation. 

"Sister,"  said  Raymond's  mother,  leaning  towards 
her. 

"Madame." 

"Sister,  when  you  again  come  to  pray  here,  will 
you  pray  for  my  boy?" 

"We  are  all  praying  for  him.  I  was  praying  for 
him  when  the  bell  rang;  it  was  hard  to  stop,  but  Our 
Lady  will  take  my  obedience  for  a  prayer — I  was 
asking  her  to  do  something." 

"What?"  whispered  the  poor  mother. 

"To  send  her  own  Son  to  him.  To  let  Him  be 
your  son's  doctor  Himself.  'You  can  spare  Him 
for  a  little  while,'  I  told  her,  'you  have  Him  at  your 
side  for  all  eternity.'  " 

To  the  Protestant  lady,  though  she  was  not  at  all 


126  THE  TIDEWAY 

bigoted,  the  nun's  way  seemed  quaint,  almost  too 
quaintly  familiar,  and  yet  its  simplicity  moved  her, 
and  then  it  was  so  tender. 

"Ah!"  she  whispered,  "I  wish  He  would  go." 
The  nun  hesitated  a  moment,  and  then  said  sim- 
ply : 

"He  will  go.     It  is  His  business.  His  own  busi- 

ness. 

Raymond's  mother  turned  her  eyes  for  an  instant 
towards  the  place  where  the  nun  had  come  and  was 
startled.  The  sister  saw  the  look  upon  her  face, 
and  was  about  to  turn  involuntarily,  in  the  direction 
Raymond's  mother  was  looking,  when  the  latter, 
yielding  to  some  impulse,  said  hurriedly,  laying  her 
hand  on  Mother  Genevieve's  sleeve: 

"No.     Please  do  not  look  !" 

The  nun  obeyed,  and  saying,  "I  must  go — you 
will  pardon  me,"  moved  noiselessly  on  her  way 
down  the  aisle. 

"Now,  Mother,"  she  said  in  her  heart  as  she 
went  away,  "show  this  other  mother  what  you  can 
do.     Make  your  Son  give  her  hers." 

That  "other  poor  mother"  was  looking  with 
awed  eyes  up  the  little  church  towards  the  altar 
where  Mother  Genevieve  had  been  praying.  Over 
it,  in  a  niche,  stood  a  figure,  life-size,  of  God's  one 
great  Mother.  A  shaft  of  light  shone  upon  it  and 
brought  out  all  the  colors — the  blue  mantle  flow- 
ered with  lily-heads,  the  soft  brown  kirtle  powdered 
with  golden  stars,  the  long  dark  auburn  hair,  the 
jeweled  crown.  The  altar  itself  was  in  a  shadow,  so 
were  the  plants  and  flowers  decorating  it.  But, 
whereas  when  the  nun  had  knelt  before  it,  the  Vir- 
gin Mother's  arms  had  clasped  her  Son  close  to  her 
shoulder  and  her  heart,  it  seemed  to  Raymond's 
mother  that  they  were  empty  now. 

"He  has  gone,"   she  said,  not  aloud.     She  still 


OLD  WINE  AND  NEW  BOTTLES     127 

looked  and  the  arms  were  still  empty.  "He  has 
gone,"  she  said  again. 

And  then,  not  wilfully  disbelieving,  but  yielding 
to  innate  habit  of  repulsion  from  the  supernatural 
and  miraculous,  she  thought :  "Impossible.  I  am 
superstitious.     I  will  go." 

And  she  rose  to  go  back  to  her  son.  As  she  left 
the  place  where  she  knelt  she  did  as  the  nun  had 
done,  and  bent  her  knee  to  the  tabernacle. 

"He  is  there,  anyway,"  she  thought,  "I  believe 
that." 

Her  obeisance,  because  she  was  not  used  to  it, 
was  not  the  same  as  the  nun's;  it  was  such  a  pro- 
found bending  of  the  whole  body  as  is  given  at  court 
to  a  sovereign. 

"The  King  of  kings,"  she  thought  as  she  bent  low. 

VI 

Outside  the  Good  Shepherd  ward  was  a  little  of- 
fice where  Madame  de  St.  Hilaire  did  her  writing, 
and  carried  on  her  other  business  of  administration. 

"Madame,  may  I  go  back  to  Raymond?" 

Madame  de  St.  Hilaire  got  up  from  the  table 
and  drew  the  English  lady  in.  "Not  for  a  few 
minutes  please.  The  doctors  have  finished  with 
your  son,  but  they  are  still  in  the  ward.  They  will 
be  gone  very  soon.  ..." 

"I  wonder  what  they  thought  of  him.  When  I 
left  him  I  thought  him  worse." 

"I  thought  so  too,  dear  madame.  I  saw  him 
just  after  you  had  left  him.  And  I  was  with  him  all 
the  time  the  doctors  were  examining  him.  But, 
courage !  I  have  always  felt  a  conviction  of  his 
recovery.  To-day  he  is,  I  confess,  worse  than  any 
day  since  he  came  here :  but  there  must  be  fluctua- 
tions— to-morrow  may  be  a  good  day  for  him." 


128  THE  TIDEWAY 

While  Madame  de  St.  Hilaire  was  speaking, 
more  hopefully  than  she  felt,  Claire  d'Argnes  came 
out  of  the  ward. 

"Madame,"  she  said,  "Doctor  St.  Simon  wants 
you  again."  Then  turning  to  Raymond's  mother 
she  said:  "Madame  d'Argnes,  I  do  not  know  if  I 
am  indiscreet,  but  Raymond  is  better." 

The  girl  did  not  notice  that  she  had  called  her 
patient  by  his  Christian  name,  nor  did  his  mother. 
Madame  de  St.  Hilaire  noticed  it;  but  not  on  that 
account  did  she  think  that  perhaps  Claire  was  indis- 
creet. Her  own  opinion  was  that  Captain  d'Argnes 
was  very  much  worse.  She,  however,  had  to  obey 
the  doctor's  summons  and  went  away  at  once. 

"You  say  he  is  better!"  said  Madame  d'Argnes, 
"Madame  de  St.  Hilaire  and  I  were,  alas,  agreeing 
that  he  was  worse." 

"Yes;  he  was,  this  morning,  before  the  doctors 
came,  and  while  they  were  examining  him.  But 
twenty  minutes  ago  I  felt  certain  I  saw  a  change. 
The  doctors  had  gone  to  attend  to  other  cases,  and 
I  was  finishing  up  with  him.  He  gave  a  little  start 
as  though  I  had  hurt  him,  touching  the  wound,  but 
I  had  not  touched  it  at  that  moment.  All  the  same 
I  apologized  for  hurting  him.  .  .  .  *But  you  did 
not  touch  me,  did  you?"  he  asked,  and  I  had  to  say 
that  I  had  not.  A  few  minutes  after  that  he  said: 
'The  pain  is  gone,  and  I  do  not  want  to  cough.  I 
am  not  choking.'  It  was  true  that  he  was  no  longer 
coughing.  He  has  not  coughed  once  since.  And 
he  asked  me  to  give  him  some  soup.  He  said  he 
felt  hungry.  The  soup  did  not  make  him  sick.  I 
am  sure  when  the  doctors  are  gone  and  you  can  go 
in  you  will  see  that  he  is  better," 

*'//^  did  go,"  thought  his  mother. 

She  was  so  quiet  that  Claire  suggested  she  could 
not  trust  herself  to  believe  such  good  news. 


OLD  WINE  AND  NEW  BOTTLES     129 

"I  am  not  deceived,"  she  added  gently,  "it  would 
be  cruel  to  buoy  you  up  with  false  hopes.  Only  I 
know  that  he  is  better.  He  is  reading  again :  all 
yesterday  and  the  day  before  he  was  not  able  to 
read." 

"What  is  it  he  reads?  I  did  not,  for  some  reason, 
care  to  ask  him." 

"Catholic  books,"  the  girl  answered  simply.  "I 
hope  you  do  not  mind.     He  asked  for  them." 

"No,"  his  mother  answered  quietly,  "I  do  not 
mind."  She  paused  a  moment  and  then  said:  "But 
I  am  very  selfish.     How  is  your  own  brother?" 

"Doing  very  well.  The  doctors  think  there  is 
now  practically  no  danger  of  another  hemorrhage. 
He  was  so  much  troubled  all  yesterday  that  Captain 
d'Argnes  was  so  ill.  As  soon  as  I  came  on  duty  this 
morning  he  began  asking  about  him." 

"Raymond  is  very  fond  of  him.  He  said:  'I  can't 
talk  to  him,  because  I  can't  raise  my  voice  enough; 
but  we  smile  at  each  other' ;  and  Claire,  my  dear 
(you  don't  mind  my  calling  you  so?),  your  brother 
has  a  most  entrancing  smile." 

His  sister  laughed  and  said:  "He  is  a  naughty 
boy.  He  teases  our  mother.  She  wants  him  to  be 
good  and  he  says:  'I  haven't  been  bad  enough  yet.' 
He  hasn't  been  to  confession  for  ever  so  long  and  he 
says:  'It's  better  to  wait  till  one  has  more  to  tell, 
thus  one  can  be  sure  of  contrition.'  He  is  not  bad 
at  all;  only  he  is  very  frivolous." 

Raymond's  mother  gave  a  little  reserved  smile. 
She  was  anything  but  frivolous;  a  religious  woman  in 
her  way,  but  all  her  habits  had  made  her  think 
religion  a  thing  it  would  be  almost  indelicate  to  dis- 
cuss in  Claire's  easygoing  fashion.  She  herself  had  a 
special  voice  for  religious  topics,  and  Claire  talked 
of  them  in  just  the  same  voice  she  would  have  used 
had  she  been  discussing  her  brother's  tastes  in  dress 


I30  THE  TIDEWAY 

or  amusement.  Above  all  she  was  taken  aback  by 
the  girl's  way  of  mentioning  confession — Catholics, 
she  supposed,  ought  to  go  to  confession,  but  it 
seemed  to  her  quite  awful  to  talk  about  it. 

Claire,  who  was  far  from  being  obtuse,  perceived 
that  she  had  somehow  been  indiscreet.  Her  mother 
was  much  in  the  habit  of  reproving  her  indiscretions. 

"All  the  same,"  she  thought,  "I  think  Englishmen 
are  nicer  than  their  mothers.  Raymond  would  not 
have  looked  like  that." 

Presently  the  doctors  passed  out  to  go  to  another 
ward,  and  Claire  said: 

"Madame,  you  may  go  in  now.  You  will  find  that 
he  is  better." 

They  entered  the  ward  together,  but  Claire  left 
Mrs.  d'Argnes  to  go  to  her  son's  bed  alone.  She  her- 
self went  to  her  brother. 

"Did  the  doctors  say  anything  about  d'Argnes?" 
he  asked  her  at  once. 

"They  did  not  to  him,  of  course.  But  they  told 
Madame  de  St.  Hilaire  he  was  very  much  worse." 

"You  speak  very  coolly  about  it.  I  suppose  you 
felt  sure  of  it  before." 

"Yes.  But,  Henri,  he  is  not  worse  now.  He  is 
much  better." 

"Really!      In  this  short  time?" 

"Yes."  And  she  told  him  what  she  had  told  Ray- 
mond's mother. 

Henri  was  unfeignedly  delighted.  He  had  taken 
an  immense  liking  for  his  English  brother-in-arms. 

"His  mother,"  he  said  in  a  low  voice,  "she  is  ex- 
cellent and  very  nice  to  me.  She  often  comes  over  to 
chat  with  me,  and  one  can  see  that  she  is  full  of 
sympathy.  But,  oh,  Claire!  she  is  stiff.  Why  do 
English  ladies  feed  on  pokers?" 

"To  stiffen  their  backs.  The  seat  of  the  English 
conscience  is  in  the  back." 


OLD  WINE  AND  NEW  BOTTLES     131 

"The  seat  of  mine  is  in  my  pocket;  and  sometimes 
it  drops  out." 

"No  one  would  hear  it  fall;  it  is  too  light.  But, 
Master  Henri,  one  of  these  days  you'U  lose  it 
altogether." 

"No.  I  shall  tell  St.  Anthony  of  Padua  to  find  it 
for  me.  He  always  finds  my  collar  stud." 

"You'd  better  not  talk  to  the  Saints  about  your 
conscience ;  they  might  tell  you  some  disagreeable 
things  about  it." 

"Oh,  no!  It  is  pert  misses,  like  you,  who  do 
that.  They  know  all  about  it,  and  have  unlim- 
ited tact.  I  think  that  little  stretcher-bearer  is  a 
saint." 

"Does  he  talk  to  you  about  your  conscience?" 

"No.  I  tell  you  he  is  a  saint.  But  when  he  talks 
to  me  I  remember  that  I  have  one.  If  Raymond 
d'Argnes  were  a  Catholic,  he  would  probably  be  a 
saint,  too." 

"Good  gracious!" 

"Yes.  He  and  the  stretcher-bearer  are  much 
alike." 

"I  can't  imagine  two  people  more  unlike." 

"That  is  your  mistake  (one  of  your  mistakes). 
One  tall,  noble,  and  very  handsome — you  need  not 
blush,  mademoiselle,  I  am  not  describing  you — the 
other  small,  plain-faced  and  insignificant,  but  they 
have  the  same  expression,  the  same  sort  of  expres- 
sion. They  are  supernatural  creatures,  and  you  and 
I,  my  dear,  are  natural  ones." 

Claire  did  not  know  that  her  brother  and  the  little 
stretcher-bearer  had  struck  up  a  kind  of  intimacy. 
But  she  knew  Henri  well  enough  to  guess  that  his 
talk  with  the  young  seminarian  would  be  very  differ- 
ent from  his  talk  with  her.  She  and  he  were  always 
chafl^ng  each  other,  even  when  the  subject  of  their 
conversation  was  a  serious  one. 


132  THE   TIDEWAY 

"After  all,"  said  Henri,  "it's  just  as  well  d'Argnes 
is  not  a  Catholic." 

"Why?" 

"The  day  he  sends  for  a  priest  I  have  to  send  for 
one.      I  have  promised  mother." 

"And  you  would  keep  your  word?" 

"Of  course  I  would.  I  am  supposed  to  be  a  gentle- 
man." Claire  laughed  and  went  off  to  attend  to  her 
duties. 


VII 

The  little  stretcher-bearer,  whose  name  was  Rous- 
sel,  liked  very  much  to  wait  upon  the  young  lieu- 
tenant of  cuirassiers;  and  the  lieutenant's  own  or- 
derly was  not  at  all  jealous.  He  had  a  cordial 
liking  for  Roussel;  and  was  fond  of  helping  him  In 
his  tasks  about  the  ward.  Roussel  never  bored 
Henri  and  never  tried  to  talk  about  religion.  He 
had  a  certain  impression  that  the  young  officer 
was  not  religious,  but  he  thought  Our  Lord  must 
be  fond  of  him  all  the  same.  "I  don't  see,"  thought 
the  little  seminarian,  "how  He  can  help  it.  /  am, 
and  I  have  done  nothing  for  Him,  while  He  has 
done  everything." 

"What  a  lot  of  trouble  I  give  you !"  said  Henri  to 
him,  on  the  afternoon  of  the  day  on  which  Raymond 
began  to  grow  better. 

"No  trouble.  Only  little  pleasures.  And — and  I 
think  it  a  great  honor.  In  my  heart  I  salute  all  the 
wounded — and  in  the  street  and  here  in  the  ward. 
'Voila,  des  braves!'  I  think.  It  is  wonderful  to  be 
brave.      I  am  not." 

"Eh!  but  that  is  untrue.  You  are  much  braver 
than  a  fellow  like  me.  You  have  no  human  respect. 
I'm  full  of  it." 


OLD  PVINE  AND  NEW  BOTTLES     133 

The  lad  regarded  him  with  a  quiet,  direct  look  out 
of  his  grave  eyes  and  said: 

"Perhaps  what  you  call  human  respect  is  shyness." 

"You,  my  dear  Roussel,  are  the  first  person  who 
ever  thought  I  was  shy !"  and  he  laughed. 

"Still  it  may  be  so." 

"You  have  something  in  your  head,  say  it." 

"Perhaps  I  had  better  not.  I  do  not  say  things 
well." 

"Well  enough  for  me.  I  am  not  a  master  of 
good  French." 

He  knew  very  well  the  boy  did  not  mean  that,  and 
said:    "It  is  you  who  are  shy." 

"Maybe.  But  it  is  not  that.  When  one  talks 
amiss  one  injures  the  subject." 

"You  will  not.  Say  what  you  meant.  I  give  you 
an  obedience — there  !" 

He  laughed,  but  Roussel's  rather  pallid  face 
flushed  a  little. 

"Well,  I  accept  the  obedience  you  give  me,"  he 
said.  "When  I  said  that  perhaps  what  you  call 
human  respect  is  shyness.  I  think  I  meant  this — you 
might  omit  some  external  proof  of  reverence  for 
what  is  right,  not  because  you  are  on  the  side  of  what 
is  wrong,  but  because  you  are  too  shy  to  range  your- 
self on  the  side  of " 

"Well,  mon  petit,  go  on." 

"Of  Our  Lord  then,  lest  it  should  seem  you  were 
claiming  a  friendship  with  Him  that  does  not  exist; 
taking  a  certain  liberty." 

"It  certainly  would  be  a  liberty  for  me  to  claim 
that  friendship." 

Roussel  did  not  go  on;  and  did  not  guess  that 
Henri  really  wished  that  he  would. 

"Why,"  asked  the  young  soldier  after  a  pause, 
"did  you  stop?" 

"I  had  said  what  I  meant,  and  badly;  as  I  knew  I 


134  THE  TIDEWAY 

should.  That  is  a  liberty.  No  one  has  a  right  to 
speak  ill  in  a  good  cause  unless  he  is  bound  to  say 
what  he  can." 

"You  have  not  injured  your  cause;  don't  be 
afraid." 

Henri  meant  more  than  he  said.  To  him  it  seemed 
that  the  lad,  even  if  he  spoke  far  more  clumsily  than 
he  did,  must  help  "his  cause"  by  being  what  he  was. 
He  felt  sure  that  it  was  purity,  faith,  religion  that 
had  made  the  boy  what  he  was.  No  doubt  he  was 
the  son  of  a  peasant,  a  peasant  himself,  with  not 
much  general  education,  but  the  young  officer  recog- 
nized in  him  a  nobler  creature  than  himself,  and 
knew  well  In  what  school  that  nobility  had  been 
learned.  Who  was  his  Schoolmaster,  what  His  les- 
sons had  been. 

"Listen,-  vion  cher,"  Henri  said  presently,  "all 
talk  worth  listening  to  is  of  the  things  with  which 
one's  heart  Is  full.  I  wish  you  would,  when  you  talk 
to  me,  not  try  to  choke  yourself  up,  but  speak  of 
what  is  In  your  heart." 

"I  can't  talk  much  of  anything.  I  have  not  the 
habit.  At  home  even  I  picked  up  the  habit  of 
silence.  My  mother's  heart  is  full  of  us  (her  seven 
children)  and  of  our  father,  but  she  does  not  talk 
of  us." 

"Not  to  you." 

"There  are  hardly  any  neighbors.  We  live  three 
kilometers  from  the  village — a  little  tiny  village. 
It  is  only  when  she  goes  to  Mass  she  sees  people, 
and  then  she  has  to  hasten  home.  There  Is  so  much 
work." 

"But  you  have  had  to  learn  the  habit  of  thought. 
You  have,  for  instance,  to  make  meditations." 

"I  do  it  ill.  I  have  always  distraction.  Every- 
thing distracts  me." 

"For  instance?" 


OLD  WINE  AND  NEW  BOTTLES     135 

"Well — anything.  I  try  to  meditate  about  Our 
Lady  and  I  look  perhaps  at  her  statue  to  help  me; 
and  my  eye  falls  on  a  flower  and  I  think  of  that — 
how  wonderful  its  color  is,  and  then  I  say  to  myself : 
'God  thought  of  everything,  even  the  color  of  the 
flower.  What  kindness !  He  need  not  have  made 
any,  people  do  not  eat  them;  or  He  might  have 
made  them  all  green  or  all  red.  And  then  I  think  of 
the  smell  of  them.  He  thought  of  that,  too,  and  I 
suppose  they  smell  like  Christ's  Feet.  And  then 
very  likely  I  think  of  some  poor  soldier's  feet, 
crushed  and  wounded  and  lame  perhaps  forever, 
and  one  thinks:  'You  will  have  to  take  his  arms, 
poor  brave;  it  is  hard  enough  to  get  to  heaven  on  two 
sound  feet.  You  will  have  to  help  him  up  that 
steep  road.'  And  then  my  thoughts  wander  to  other 
wounded,  to  you,  often,  lately :  and  instead  of  medi- 
tating on  the  Blessed  Virgin's  humility,  I  am  begging 
her  to  obtain  that  you  have  no  more  hemorrhage. 
I  am  a  wool-gatherer." 

"Eh,  my  little  stretcher-bearer,  go  on  gathering 
your  wool  for  me,  and  perhaps  she  will  weave  a 
white  garment  out  of  it  for  some  poor  devil  of  a 
soldier  who  hasn't  kept  his  own  very  clean.'* 

VIII 

Meanwhile  Raymond  and  his  mother  were  talking 
too.  He  had  been  reading:  and  looking  up  he 
caught  her  eye. 

"You  wonder  what  my  books  are?"  he  asked, 
smiling. 

"I  used  to  wonder.      I  think  I  know." 

"They  are  about  the  Catholic  religion.  I  want 
to  know  more  about  it.  I  think  it  always  interested 
me;  but  only  as  a  fine  thing  out  of  date  like  chivalry 
and  the  Feudal  System:  a  great  idea  that  had  made 


136  THE  TIDEWAY 

the  Middle  Ages  more  picturesque  than  our  own. 
Still  one  could  not  now  go  back  to  the  old  feudal 
ways." 

"I  suppose  not,"  said  his  mother,  rather  uncer- 
tainly. She  was  a  Tory  of  Tories,  and  was  not 
sure  that  modern  times  were  all  that  they  should  be. 

"Well,  I  think  there  is  always  affectation  in  ignor- 
ing that  past  things  are  past.  Tournaments  and 
jousts  now — they  would  be  an  affectation — and  we 
do  not  need  to  fortify  ourselves  in  castles.  An  old 
castle  is  most  fascinating,  but  to  build  a  new  one  is 
appalling.  I  suppose  I  thought  Catholicism  was 
gone  like  the  castles.  Just  as  in  some  old  families 
there  are  the  castles  still,  and  their  owners, do  right 
to  preserve  them  carefully,  so  in  some  of  our  oldest 
families  there  is  still  the  Catholic  faith,  and  I 
thought  them  also  right,  having  it,  to  keep  it — a  sort 
of  heirloom  and  relic.  But  where  it  was  gone,  it 
seemed  to  me,  it  would  only  be  an  affectation  to  pre- 
tend it  hadn't  gone — like  building  a  new  castle.  You 
see  I  thought  it  also  a  relic,  and  relics  are  of  the 
dead,  not  of  the  living.  So  I  thought  there  would 
be  a  sort  of  vulgarity  in  becoming  a  Catholic — as  if 
a  man  should  buy  some  other  family's  heirloom;  im- 
agine a  nouveau  riche  buying  at  an  auction  the  shirt 
Charles  I  was  beheaded  in!" 

"It's  just  what  Lord — would  do  if  he  had  the 
chance !"  declared  Mrs.  d'Argnes  with  disgust  and 
conviction,  and  rather  glad  to  be  able  to  say  some- 
thing quite  on  Raymond's  side. 

"You  understand  then.  Well,  since  I  came  out 
here  I  have  found  how  different  it  is.  The  Catholic 
religion  is  not  antique;  it  is  eternal.  It  is  not  medi- 
aeval a  bit;  the  Middle  Ages  belonged  to  it;  but  it  did 
not  belong  to  them.  It  is  quite  as  modern  as  being 
alive,  and  eating  and  drinking  and  being  happy  and 
sad;  and  instead  of  being  an  obsolete  phase  it  is  an 


OLD  WINE  AND  NEW  BOTTLES     137 

undying  principle  and  the  only  one  for  which  hun- 
dreds of  millions  of  living  men  would  care  to  die. 
It  is  no  more  dead  than  Christ."  He  paused  an  in- 
stant and  said  in  a  very  low  voice,  "It  is  Christian- 
ity." 

"Oh,  Raymond!" 

"Yes.  I  have  come  to  feel  sure  of  that.  All 
others  are  broken  chips  knocked  off  Christianity  by 
the  jostle  of  doubt  and  opinion.  The  difference,  I 
have  come  to  see,  between  the  Catholic  Church  and 
other  Churches  is  the  difference  between  God's  reve- 
lation and  man's  opinion.  Perhaps,  what  first  set 
me  on  that  train  was  a  thing  a  young  officer  of  my 
regiment  said.  He  is  a  Catholic  and  very  devout, 
but  not  fussily  or  obtrusively.  Everybody  respects 
him  because  one  feels  that  his  religion  is  part  of  him- 
self, not  part  of  his  talk.  Well,  one  evening — we 
were  taking  our  rest  and  were  altogether — some  of 
us  were  talking  about  religion  and  he  was  reading. 
One  fellow  said:  'My  idea  is  so  and  so,'  and  another 
said,  'The  way  I  look  'at  it  is  this,'  and  someone 
else  said:  'And  my  notion  of  It  is  that,'  and  so  on. 
It  was  interesting,  but  simply  a  clatter  of  theories : 
then  one  of  us  asked  Chichester  what  his  ideas  were. 
'I  am,'  he  answered  simply,  'a  Catholic.  It  is  not 
with  us  a  question  of  notions,  but  of  what  God  has 
revealed.  The  Catholic  Church  teaches  us  that.' 
And  mother,  I  think  that  is  why  other  Churches 
keep  changing  their  teaching  and  the  Catholic 
Church  never  does.  They  started  with  human  opin- 
ion and  so  they  naturally  feel  they  have  a  right  to 
modify  it.  The  Catholic  Church  knows  she  has  no 
right  to  change  one  jot  or  one  tittle  of  what  Christ 
revealed  and  set  her  to  guard.  She  is  the  trustee 
of  His  bequest  of  faith,  and  cannot  cheat  His  chil- 
dren of  the  smallest  coin  of  it." 

"You  intend  to  become  a  Catholic?" 


138  THE  TIDEWAY 

"Yes,  dear  mother.  I  hope  you  will  not  mind 
very  much." 

"I  am  sure  you  will  only  do  what  you  think  right. 
But  it  will  divide  us  so." 

"You  and  me?" 

"Yes,  dear.     It  will  build  up  a  wall  between  us." 

"There  is  no  wall  between  you  and  Lionel;  you 
and  he  are  just  as  much  to  each  other  as  ever  you 
were." 

Her  son,  Lionel,  had  abandoned  all  faith  and  said 
so.  His  mother  had  been  shocked,  but,  as  Raymond 
said,  it  had  not  divided  her  from  her  son. 

She  could  not  answer  that,  but  spoke  of  something 
else.  Raymond  was  saying:  "I  do  not  believe  you 
will  love  me  less  because  I  am  a  Catholic,  and  if  I 
could  love  you  more  I  should  believe  it  would  make 
me  love  you  more." 

She  just  touched  his  hand,  smiled  and  said:  "If 
you  turn  Catholic  you  will  have  to  go  in  for  miracles 
and  all  that  sort  of  dreadful  stuff." 

Even  as  she  spoke  she  felt  an  uncomfortable 
twinge,  and  really  thought  she  heard  a  voice  say,  not 
in  her  ear,  but  in  her  heart,  "I  did  go." 

"Go  in  for  them!"  said  Raymond  with  a  little 
smile,  "if  you  mean  believe  in  them,  I  do:  God  is 
always  the  same,  omnipotent  and  kind.  There  are 
still  blind  men  to  be  made  to  see  and  dead  folk  to 
bring  to  life." 

She  was  not  really  listening  to  him,  but  wondering 
whether,  if  she  were  incredulous,  this  miracle  of  his 
being  better  might  be  cancelled  through  her  fault. 
That  frightened  her.  Then  she  thought,  "It  was  not 
I  who  asked  Him  to  go.  It  was  the  nun  who  asked 
His  mother  to  send  Him.  Her  faith  was  re- 
warded, not  mine,  and  her  faith  doesn't  stumble." 
That  comforted  her,  but  she  prayed  in  her  heart: 
"Do  not  let  me  spoil  it." 


OLD  WINE  AND  NEW  BOTTLES     139 

IX 

When  Claire  entered  the  ward  next  morning — for 
she  was  on  day  duty — her  brother's  little  friend,  the 
stretcher-bearer,  said  to  her  at  once : 

"Please,  will  you  go  to  Monsieur  d'Argnes?" 

"My  brother?" 

"Yes,  mademoiselle.  He  asked  me  to  say  you 
were  to  go  first  to  him." 

"Here  I  am,  Henri,  what  is  It?"  she  asked,  as 
soon  as  she  had  reached  his  bedside.  "Is  anything 
the  matter?    Did  you  have  a  bad  night?" 

"No."  Then  he  looked  queer  and  said:  "But — 
you  will  have  to  send  for  a  priest." 

"Oh,  Henri !      Do  you  mean  that  you  are  worse  ?" 

"Worse  than  I  thought,  perhaps  .  .  .  but,  oh, 
don't  look  frightened.     I  was  teasing  you. 

"You  don't  really  want  a  priest?" 

"Yes,  I  do.  I  told  you  I  would  keep  my  word; 
and  Raymond  d'Argnes  is  to  have  a  priest.  The 
little  stretcher-bearer  told  me.  He  is  going  to  be- 
come a  Catholic.  Roussel  is  so  nearly  in  heaven 
already  with  delight,  that  if  we  don't  hold  on  to  him 
he  will  slip  off  altogether." 

"I'll  tell  you  who  won't  be  In  heaven  then — 
Madame  d'Argnes.     She  will  hate  It." 

"Mamma?"  said  Henri,  hypocritically,  pretend- 
ing to  misunderstand.  "I  should  think  she  would 
be  glad." 

"Not  our  mother,  but  Captain  d'Argnes'.  She  is 
Protestant  all  down  her  long  back."  _ 

"People,"  observed  Henri  audaciously,  "always 
do  dislike  their  mothers-in-law." 

His  sister  darted  a  most  savage  look  at  him,  which 
he  sustained  with  unflinching  effrontery. 

"It  is  perfectly  beasdy  of  you  to  say  that,"  she 
remarked  hotly,  in  English. 


140  THE  TIDEWAY 

**Ah,  ah,  Miss,  you  would  not  dare  to  use  such 
expressions  in  French!  Stick  to  your  mother 
tongue ;  it  restrains  you.  It  wasn't  at  all  'beastly'  of 
me  to  say  that.  It  was  to  clear  the  ground.  It  was 
to  save  you  the  embarrassment  of  having  to  make 
a  certain  announcement  one  of  these  days." 

Claire  did  not  look  much  mollified  by  this. 

"If  mamma  heard  you  talking  like  that,"  she  ob- 
served, "she  would  wash  your  head  for  you." 

"If  mamma  heard  you  talking  of  'perfectly 
beastly'  yoii  would  be  soaped,  my  dear.  As  a  mat- 
ter of  fact  she  and  I  quite  approve,  and  you  know 
very  well  that  she  and  I  can  persuade  papa  of  any- 
thing; if  you  are  too  uppish  I  shall  withdraw  my 
consent,  and  then  see  what  papa  says !" 

"You  don't  mean  to  say,"  said  Claire  in  a  tone  of 
horror,  "that  you  and  she  have  been  discussing  this." 

"Yes,  I  do.  It  is  quite  correct.  Young  ladies  are 
not  to  arrange  these  matters  for  themselves.  The 
heads  of  their  families  have  to  adjust  their  opinions 
first." 

"You  one  of  the  heads  of  my  family!  What — I 
shall  have  to  talk  English  again." 

"Well!" 

\'Wh2it  cheek  r 

"Claire!  I'm  sure  your  excellent  Mees  (what 
names  English  Meeses  do  have!  Mac-Gilly,  Cuddy, 
wasn't  it?)  I'm  sure  she  never  taught  you  to  say 
'what  cheek!'" 

"No,  it  was  you." 

"Pray  understand  that  though  there  are  no  gen- 
ders in  English  there  is  masculine  English  and  femi- 
nine English.  I  may  talk  of  your  cheek,  but  you  may 
not  talk  of  mine.  Yours,  by  the  way,  is  slightly 
flushed. 

Clare,  still  unreconciled,  went  off  to  her  duties. 
All  the  same  there  was  a  grain  of  truth  in  what 


OLD  WINE  AND  NEPV  BOTTLES     141 

Henri  had  said.  If  something  did  happen,  the  fact 
that  her  mother  and  brother  were  cordial  in  ap- 
proval, would  certainly  go  far  to  secure  her  father's 
consent. 

X 

Raymond  continued  to  improve.  He  was  able  to 
eat  well,  and  almost  hourly  seemed  to  recover 
strength.  The  cough  was  wholly  gone.  The  doc- 
tors, who  had  not  yet  made  another  examination  of 
the  wound,  began  to  hope  that  an  operation  might 
be  possible,  and  the  piece  of  shrapnel  be  removed. 
When  they  did  examine  the  wound  they  found  that 
the  piece  of  shell  had  come  away  and  was  near  the 
entrance  of  it.  It  could  be  taken  out  instantly  and 
without  an  ansesthetic.  The  wound  itself  was  al- 
ready much  more  healthy,  and  now  it  would  be 
necessary  to  encourage  its  healing.  Hitherto  it  had 
been  essential  to  keep  it  open. 

As  Raymond  was  now  able  to  talk,  not  only  with- 
out fatigue  or  danger  of  bringing  on  the  cough  that 
had  agonized  him,  but  in  a  much  stronger  voice, 
Henri  asked  to  be  moved  across  the  ward  to  the  bed 
next  his,  rendered  vacant  by  the  departure  of  one  of 
the  wounded.  Raymond  was  delighted,  and  Ma- 
dame de  St.  Hilaire  gave  her  consent. 

Henri  could  not  help  teasing  his  sister,  and  said 
to  her  before  he  was  moved  across:  "You  see  I 
shall  thus  be  able  to  improve  my  mind  by  hearing 
your  conversation  with  Captain  d'Argnes." 

"He  talks  a  great  deal  more  to  your  little  stretch- 
er-bearer than  he  does  to  me." 

"One  can  understand  that.  Roussel  is  not  frivo- 
lous.    He  does  not  say  'cheek'." 

The  priest  came  to  Raymond  and  gave  him  condi- 
tional baptism  and  heard  his  confession,  his  profes- 


142  THE  TIDEWAY 

sion  of  faith  and  absolved  him.  For  his  first  Holy 
Communion  it  was  decided  that  he  should  wait  till 
he  should  be  able  to  go  to  the  convent  chapel.  But 
at  St.  Just  there  lives  a  Bishop,  not  the  Bishop  of  the 
vast  diocese,  but  one  of  his  Vicars  General,  and  he 
came  to  the  hospital  and  gave  Raymond  confirma- 
tion. While  he  did  this  screens  were  arranged 
around  the  patient's  bed.  As  he  came  out,  when  the 
brief  rite  was  finished,  he  saw  Henri  looking  up  in 
his  face,  and  he  smiled. 

"Everything  goes  well,  my  brave  man?"  asked 
the  bishop,  and  as  he  smiled  the  young  cuirassier 
thought:  "What  a  good  man.     There  is  my  priest." 

"Monslgnor !"  he  said  aloud.  And  he  made  a 
little  gesture  for  the  bishop  to  stoop  down. 

"Yes?     What  is  it,  my  brave  man?" 

"You  have  just  made  a  soldier  of  Christ  of  the 
Christian,"  said  Henri,  "now  make  a  little  Christian 
of  this  soldier.      I  want  to  confess  myself." 

For  a  bishop  monsignor  was  young;  he  was  not 
yet  ten  years  in  the  priesthood. 

"I  had  to  do  that  before,"  he  said,  smiling  down 
into  the  honest  young  eyes.  "I  was  a  soldier,  too; 
not  an  officer,  just  a  little  corporal  of  infantry"  (he 
was  about  six  feet  high)  "and  one  day  The  Captain 
called  me — and  orders  are  orders — I  had  to  obey. 
I  had  to  change  armies,  and  make  myself  a  Chris- 
tian. I  tell  you  this  that  you  may  feel  that  I  know 
all  about  it.  I  did  not  mean  that  one  cannot  be  a 
good  Christian  in  our  glorious  French  army;  I  know 
there  are  hundreds  of  thousands;  I  only  mean  that  / 


was  not." 


He  spoke  so  simply,  so  wholly  without  pose  or 
unctuousness,  that  Henri  was  quite  sure  he  had  been 
right  in  thinking,  "Here  is  my  priest." 

The  screens  were  still  round  Raymond's  bed,  and 
as  Henri's  was  the  last  at  the  end  of  the  ward,  no 


OLD  WINE  AND  NEW  BOTTLES     143 

one  saw  that  the  bishop  was  sitting  at  his  side.  It 
was  only  just  as  he  was  going  away  that  the  little 
stretcher-bearer  came  to  take  away  the  screens. 
Claire  came  up  at  the  same  time.  When  the  bishop 
had  gone,  Henri,  who  was  as  teasing  as  ever,  said 
to  her: 

"I  shall  not  send  for  a  priest." 

"Oh,  you  have  changed  your  mind." 

She  did  not  speak  reproachfully,  but  he  saw  at 
once  that  she  was  disappointed  that  he  had  gone  back 
on  his  word. 

"After  all  a  bishop  is  a  priest,"  he  observed,  mak- 
ing a  queer  little  face  at  her. 

"Do  you  mean  .  .  .  ?"  she  asked  eagerly,  in  a  low 
voice. 

"Yes."  And  though  he  only  nodded  she  under- 
stood. 

"Isn't  he  nice  ?"  she  asked.  She  had  far  too  much 
tact  and  instinct  to  gush  forth  in  congratulations. 
All  the  same  she  was  in  her  heart  thanking  God; 
she  felt  sure  it  was  years  since  he  had  been  to  con- 
fession. 

"After  all,"  whispered  Henri,  with  a  little  jerk 
of  his  head  toward  Raymond's  bed,  "it  was  his  idea, 
wasn't  it?     I  had  not  the  least  thought  of  it." 

Another  patient  called  her,  and  Henri  looked 
toward  Roussel,  who  had  just  finished  taking  away 
the  screens  and  was  about  to  go  away  himself.  He 
caught  the  lad's  eye,  and  with  a  gesture  of  the  head 
invited  him  to  come  near. 

"Roussel,"  he  said,  when  the  little  stretcher- 
bearer  was  standing  by  his  bedside,  "did  you  hear 
my  sister  and  me  talking?" 

"Of  course  I  did.  But  I  was  going  and  coming, 
and  only  caught  one  sentence;  besides,  you  were 
neither  of  you  talking  loudly." 

"What  was  the  sentence?" 


144  THE   TIDEWAY 

"I  thought,"  the  lad  answered  honestly,  "that  I 
heard  you  say,  'I  shall  not  need  a  priest'  I  then 
took  one  of  the  screens  away  to  the  end  of  the  ward." 

"I  suppose  you  were  sorry?" 

"I  had  not  known  you  had  ever  thought  of  send- 
ing for  a  priest.      But  I  was  sorry." 

"You  would  like  me  to  confess  myself?  Don't 
you  often  find  it  hard  to  find  anything  to  say?" 

"No.  But  I  have  heard  some  people  say  that 
they  found  it  hard." 

"Ah !  that's  the  worst  of  going  too  often.  I  had 
no  difficulty." 

He  could  not  help  teasing  even  Roussel  a  little, 
but  he  liked  much  better  making  him  happy. 

"I  told  Claire,"  he  said,  "that  I  should  not  send 
for  a  priest  because  I  had  confessed  to  the  bishop." 

XI 

By  the  time  Raymond  was  well  enough  to  go  to 
the  chapel  for  his  First  Communion,  Henri  was  also 
able  to  be  up ;  though  he  could  not  walk.  He  went 
in  a  wheeled  chair  to  the  chapel  and  received  Holy 
Communion,  too.  On  the  afternoon  of  that  day  he 
was  again  wheeling  himself  about  in  the  chair, 
though  only  in  the  ward.  Presently  the  door 
opened,  and  Madame  de  St.  Hilaire  came  in  and  at 
her  side  walked  Count  d'Argnes.  Neither  of  his 
children  saw  him  enter;  their  backs  were  turned  to 
that  end  of  the  ward. 

"Claire,"  Henri  was  saying,  "to-day  has  an  odd 
feeling.      Can  you  understand?" 

"Yes,  I  think  so." 

"It  feels,"  the  young  cuirassier  said,  "like  the  day 
of  my  First  Communion." 

"Henri,"  she  said,  almost  in  his  ear,  as  she  leaned 
over  the  back  of  the  wheeled  chair,  "I  was  afraid 


OLD  WINE  AND  NEW  BOTTLES     145 

you  would  have  had  too  much  human  respect.  The 
chapel  was  so  full,  and  you  not  being  able  to  go  to 
the  altar  made  it  worse." 

He  had  occupied  a  bench  quite  at  the  front,  and 
the  priest  had  brought  the  Blessed  Sacrament  to  him 
there. 

"Oh,"  he  said,  "the  little  stretcher-bearer  taught 
me  not  to  mind  about  human  respect.  He  thinks 
he  is  a  coward,  and  I  know  he  would  go  to  Holy 
Communion  before  ten  thousand  unbelievers." 

Madame  de  St.  Hilaire  touched  Claire  upon  the 
shoulder  and  said: 

"Look  down  there,  you  two  people,  see  what 
visitor  I  have  brought  you." 

Claire  turned  the  chair  round  with  a  rapid  sweep, 
and  at  the  same  moment  they  both  saw  their  father 
and  mother  coming  toward  them. 

"Papa!"  they  cried. 

"Yes.  I  am  here !  I  took  it  into  my  head  to 
come  and  see  what  you  were  all  about." 

Madame  de  St.  Hilaire  went  away  and  left  them 
to  themselves. 

"Sit  down,"  said  Henri,  "that's  my  bed." 

And  M.  d'Argnes  sat  down  upon  it. 

"Henri,"  he  said,  "I  find  you  very  well.  You 
have  recovered  nicely.  And  Claire — I  think  the 
change  of  air  has  done  her  good.  Madame  de  St. 
Hilaire  tells  me  she  is  a  very  good  nurse,  but  she 
does  not  look  overworked." 

"Oh,  no,"  declared  her  brother,  "Claire  has  excel- 
lent distractions." 

His  sister  looked  savage  and  her  mother  looked 
inclined  to  give  her  son  a  slap;  but  one  cannot  box 
wounded  men's  ears,  and  he  escaped. 

"Captain  d'Argnes,"  said  the  Count,  "looks  al- 
most well.  His  mother  is  not  much  like  him — a 
very  noble  woman,  but — no,  I  find  no  resemblance." 


146  THE  TIDEWAY 

"Claire  does  not  find  any,  either,"  remarked  her 
brother  in  a  disengaged  manner.  "Papa!  should 
you  like  Claire  to  enter  holy  religion?" 

"My  dear  boy,"  cried  her  father,  "what  on  earth 
do  you  mean?" 

"She  is  determined  never  to  change  her  name." 

Count  d'Argnes  adjusted  his  pince-nez  and  looked 
at  each  member  of  his  family  in  turn. 

"What  is  Henri  talking  about?"  he  asked  appeal- 
ingly. 

"Well,  circumstances,"  said  Henri,  "lead  me  to 
the  conviction  that  she  is  resolved  to  stick  to  the 
name  of  d'Argnes." 

His  mother  was  trying  not  to  laugh,  and  Claire 
was  trying  (with  indifferent  success)  to  look  loftily 
unconcerned  by  her  brother's  foolish  remarks.  His 
father,  without  any  endeavor  at  all,  was  looking 
thoroughly  puzzled. 

"There  seem,"  said  Henri,  "only  two  ways  in 
which  she  can  carry  out  her  plan;  one  way  is  to  enter 
holy  religion;  the  other  ..."  and  he  gently  raised 
a  crutch  and  pointed  down  the  ward  to  Raymond's 
mother,  whose  tall  figure  was  turned  their  way.  Ray- 
mond himself,  with  his  back  to  them,  was  hidden 
in  the  big  armchair  in  which  he  was  sitting,  ".  .  .  . 
the  other,"  explained  Henri,  "is  to  do  as  she  did." 

"As  she  did?"  repeated  his  father. 

"Yes.  Didn't  she  marry  a  Mr.  d'Argnes?  I 
think  it  an  excellent  plan;  and  so  does  mother.  As 
for  Claire,  I  suspect  it's  about  the  only  thing  in 
which  she  would  be  disposed  to  imitate  our  good 
friend,  Raymond's  mother." 


A  FRANCO-AMERICAN  ENCOUNTER 

I 

"  A  H,"   said  Miss   Shenstone,  making  a  grab   at 
-^^    Piou-piou,  "here  is  Madame  de  Valmandois." 

It  was  not  at  the  gentleman  to  whom  she  had  been 
talking  that  she  grabbed,  but  at  her  sister's  griffon. 

*'He  is,"  she  exclaimed,  as  she  clutched  him, 
"always  excited  out  of  doors.  It  is  only  excitement 
that  makes  him  seem  to  bite  people;  all  our  dogs 
are  perfectly  good-tempered.  But  they  are  excitable 
(of  nervous  temperaments),  and  out  in  the  garden 
they  wish  to  rush  about.  The  arrival  of  any  addi- 
tional person  they  seize  as  a  pretext.  ..." 

"I  suppose  Piou-piou,"  remarked  M.  de  Saulmoz, 
"regarded  me  as  a  pretext;  he  certainly  seized 
me." 

Miss  Shenstone  hardly  appeared  to  hear  this  ob- 
servation, for  she  merely  completed  her  sentence 
.  .  .  "indoors  they  are  always  calm  and  hospitable. 
I  wish  Anna  would  take  up  Dando,  he  makes  more 
fuss  than  Piou-piou,  and  he  looks  more  savage. 
Thank  goodness  Essie  has  got  Fi-fi  in  her  lap,  I  hope 
she  will  keep  him  there.  Beau  Bichon  doesn't  seem 
to  be  about.  He  bit  one  of  the  gardeners  after 
luncheon,  and  it  was  the  one  whose  sister  the  second 
footman  is  making  up  to;  I  shouldn't  be  surprised 
if  Michael  had  shut  him  up  in  the  study  to  curry 
favor." 

"If  I  wanted  to  make  up  to  a  young  lady  it  would 
never  occur  to  me  to  shut  her  brother  up  in  the 
study." 

Miss  Shenstone  smiled  indulgently  at  this  poor 
pleasantry,  and  said: 

147 


148  THE   TIDEWAY 

"Of  course,  it  is  Beau  Bichon  who  is  shut  up — oh, 
there  he  is!" 

There,  indeed,  he  was;  tearing  wildly  across  the 
lawn,  and  barking  with  such  passion  as  almost  to 
choke  himself,  and  quite  to  blind  himself,  for  other- 
wise he  would  hardly  have  tumbled  over  in  mid- 
course.  Piou-piou  had  leapt  from  Miss  Shenstone's 
arms,  Dando  had  hurled  himself  from  under  a 
wicker  tea-table,  where  he  had  taken  up  a  post  con- 
venient for  refreshment,  when  its  good  things  should 
be  dispensed,  Fi-fi  fled  from  the  embrace  of  Miss 
Essie  Shenstone,  and  all  three  were  making  amain 
at  Madame  de  Valmondois  when  Beau  Bichon  tum- 
bled over  himself,  whereupon  they  instantly  fell  on 
him,  and  bit  any  part  of  him  that  they  could  get  at. 

The  perfidy  of  this  conduct  shocked  the  four  Miss 
Shenstones,  who  dashed  to  the  relief  of  the  prostrate 
Beau  Bichon.  Each  seized  a  tail  or  a  leg  of  her  own 
or  of  one  of  her  sisters'  pets,  and  Madame  de  Val- 
mondois reached  the  company  in  a  comparative  lull. 
Dando,  who  loved  sympathy  and  sentiment,  wailed, 
indeed,  and  Fi-fi  made  explosions  like  a  cat,  Piou- 
piou  silently  bit  his  mistress's  elbow  to  calm  himself, 
and  Beau  Bichon  glared  and  hiccoughed  defiance,  as 
who  should  say,  "Wait  a  bit.  I  shan't  forget,  my 
dears."     Otherwise  there  was  calm. 

"I  arrive,"  observed  Madame  de  Valmondois, 
"with  some  eclat.'' 

She  herself  had  remained  entirely  undisturbed, 
and  had,  while  all  four  dogs  were  in  full  tilt  at  her, 
continued  to  advance  toward  her  hostesses  and  their 
friends.  Perhaps  there  were  twenty  people  under 
the  trees  near  the  tea-tables;  only  three  or  four  were 
gentlemen.  Most  of  them  seemed  to  know 
Madame  de  Valmondois,  Gaston  de  Saulmoz  had 
never  seen  her  before. 

He  had  an  impression  that  her  entrance,  if  ordi- 


A  FRANCO-AMERICAN  ENCOUNTER    149 

narily  pointed  by  less  eclat,  seldom  failed  to  attract 
the  attention  of  the  company.  He  could  not  imagine 
her  arrival  anywhere  passing  unnoted.  He  even 
told  himself  that  her  presence  anywhere  must  some- 
how add  a  distinction  to  the  company  she  joined,  no 
matter  of  whom  it  might  consist.  And  all  this,  he 
also  assured  himself,  was  not  due  merely  or  wholly 
to  her  beauty.  Her  beauty,  in  fact,  was  of  a  quality 
that  might  not  always  arrest  the  first  hasty  glance. 
("All  the  same,"  he  thought,  "no  one  could  glance 
hastily  and  be  content")  The  distinction  that  even 
a  first  glance  revealed  was  not  in  her  face  but  in 
herself.  She  was  tall,  but  not  so  tall  as  she  seemed 
— not,  he  found,  a  little  to  his  surprise,  so  tall  as 
himself.  She  was  slim  though  not  thin;  her  figure 
was  charming  but  it  was  not  in  her  figure  alone,  any 
more  than  in  her  face  alone  that  her  charm  lay;  nor 
yet  in  her  manner  of  walking,  of  moving,  of  standing 
still,  though  she  walked  so  beautifully  that  Gaston 
assured  himself  that  she  could  not  be  English,  her 
movements  were  grace  itself,  and  yet  simplicity 
itself,  too;  and  when  she  stood  still  he  thought  her 
so  graceful  that  any  movement  must  soil  her.  He 
had  only  heard  her  say  the  four  words  quoted  above, 
but  they  were  enough  to  tell  him  that  her  voice  was 
perfect. 

Being  a  man  he  could  not  have  told  anyone  how 
she  was  dressed;  in  black,  yes,  but  not  in  mourning; 
the  black  was  light  in  texture,  gauzy,  summery, 
and  there  was  a  little  lilac  in  the  gown  and  in  the 
hat. 

How  old  could  she  be?  Only  royal  ladles,  he 
thought,  could  have  so  calm  a  dignity  and  be  mere 
girls;  yet  it  was  a  girl's  figure,  and,  now  that  he 
could  again  see  her  face,  it  was  the  face  of  a  lovely 
girl.  She  was  talking  to  a  whole  group  and  he  could 
hear  quite  plainly. 


I50  *         THE  TIDEWAY 

"Presently,"  said  Miss  Shenstone,  "I  want  to 
introduce  you." 

"Who,"  he  asked  eagerly,  but  speaking  in  a  very 
low  voice,  "is  she?" 

"Madame  de  Valmondois." 

"I  have  lived  so  little  in  France  since  I  was  a  boy 
— hardly  at  all  in  Paris — that  I  am  afraid  I  do  not 
know  what  that  means." 

"She  has  not  lived  in  Paris  till  now.  Valmondois 
is  one  of  the  many  titles  in  the  Saint  Mesmin  family; 
her  husband  was  Due  de  Valmondois." 

'Was?     Is  he  dead?" 

"Oh,  yes.  She  married  at  seventeen.  M.  de  Val- 
mondois was  killed  in  a  motor  accident  five  weeks 
afterwards." 

"How  terrible  for  her." 

"Yes.     But  ..." 

"But  what?" 

"Well,  I  personally  thought  him  most  disagree- 
able.    And  he  was  not  an  angel." 

"There  are  no  dukes  among  the  angels,  Made- 
moiselle." 

"No,  but  there  may  be  angels  among  the  dukes. 
He  was  not  one.  And  then  he  was  thirty-five  years 
older  than  her;  and — well,  I  thought  the  marriage 
a  mistake;  and  if  I  was  right,  its  speedy  end  might 
not  be  such  an  irremediable  misfortune  in  the  long 
run." 

"At  seventeen  few  misfortunes  are  irremediable; 
you  say  she  lives  now,  at  last,  in  Paris. 

"She  has  a  house  there.  But  she  had  lived  and 
still  lives  chiefly  on  her  estates;  the  winters  she  has 
sometimes  spent  at  Bagneres  de  Big.  ...  It  was 
there  she  and  we  were  neighbors." 

"Of  what  nationality  is  she?" 

"Why  not  French?  You  can  hear  that  she  talks 
French  perfectly." 


A  FRANCO-AMERICAN  ENCOUNTER     151 

"Yes.  Really  perfectly.  I  cannot  say  why  she 
should  be  French.  It  would  be  very  kind  of  her 
to  be  so." 

"You  evidently  do  not  believe  she  is,  though.  Nor 
is  she." 

"Not  English,  I  am  sure." 

"No.     Her  kindness  extends  further  than  that." 

"You  mean  that  she  is  American?" 

"Yes.  She  is  American  like  ourselves.  In  fact, 
her  mother  and  ours  were  relatives,  though  not  near 
relations.  Her  mother  was  a  Virginian,  and  so  was 
ours.  But  her  father  was  a  Philadelphian  and  ours 
was  from  Georgia.  Now  come  and  let  me  present 
you." 

Though  we  have  spoken  of  this  lady  as  Miss 
Shenstone,  she  was  not  the  eldest  of  the  four  sisters. 
Miss  Anna  was  the  eldest,  and  she  alone  of  the  four 
was  frankly  and  exclusively  American;  Miss  Essie 
was  the  youngest,  and  had  only  been  to  America 
once ;  she  was  to  all  intents  and  purposes  a  French- 
woman, and  both  her  accent  and  idiom  in  talking 
English  had  a  French  tinge.  Miss  Megsie  reverted 
for  type  to  her  maternal  ancestry,  which  was  Scottish 
and  highly  aristocratic.  Miss  Sally,  whose  conversa- 
tion with  M.  de  Saulmoz  we  have  been  overhear- 
ing, was  quite  equally  French  and  American.  All 
four  ladies  were  extremely  American  in  the  admir- 
able qualities  of  unbridled  hospitality  and  measure- 
less largeness  of  heart;  perhaps  also  in  a  chronic 
tendency  to  unfettered  criticism  of  whoever  hap- 
pened to  be  President  for  the  time  being  of  the 
United  States.  No  accusation  was  ever  more  sharply 
repelled  by  each  of  the  four  than  that  of  being 
English — an  accusation  always  rather  to  be  made 
against  English-speaking  sojourners  on  the  Euro- 
pean continent  by  the  Continentals,  who  really  mean 
no  harm  by  it.    This  vigorous  repudiation  was  due 


152  THE  TIDEWAY 

merely  to  patriotism ;  and  did  not  imply  any  dislike 
of  Great  Britain;  on  the  contrary,  there  would  have 
been  five  Miss  Shenstones  had  not  one  of  them  mar- 
ried an  Englishman  of  excellent  family  and  position. 
These  ladies  had  no  hatred  of  monarchs,  but  in  a 
monarchy  the  public  are  called  subjects,  and  the 
Misses  Shenstone  had  no  idea  of  being  subjects. 
Yet  it  must  not  be  inferred  that  they  lived  in  France 
because  it  was  a  Republic;  there  is  no  reason  what- 
ever for  supposing  that  they  would  have  quitted  it 
had  it  suddenly  made  up  its  mind  to  be  again  an 
Empire  or  a  Kingdom.  Most  of  their  French  friends 
awaited  such  a  conversion  with  loud  impatience, 
though  without  ever  doing  anything  whatever  to 
bring  it  about. 

If  it  be  inquired  of  what  age  were  these  ladies, 
I  can  only  say  that  such  curiosity  is  intrusive,  and 
that  I  will  not  indulge  it,  merely  remarking  that  the 
charming  chateau  near  Versailles  in  which  they  spent 
their  summers  had  been  bought  by  them  about  five 
and  twenty  years  ago. 

II 

M.  de  Saulmoz,  it  may  be  remembered,  alluded 
to  himself  as  having  been  absent  from  France  almost 
continually  since  his  boyhood;  which  circumstance 
was  due  to  the  fact  that  his  father,  the  Marquis 
de  Saulmoz-Monthois,  had  been  French  Minister  in 
Portugal — and  then  French  Ambassador  at  Wash- 
ington. 

As  he  had  lived  with  his  parents  until  it  was  time 
for  him  to  come  back  to  France  for  his  period  of 
military  service,  he  was  a  better  linguist  than  is  com- 
mon with  young  Frenchmen  of  his  age.  For  he  spoke 
Spanish,  Portuguese  and  English  quite  fluently. 

To  Madame  de  Valmondois,  however,  he  spoke 


A  FRANCO-AMERICAN  ENCOUNTER     153 

French,  as  It  was  in  French  that  Miss  Sally  Shen- 
stone  introduced  him.  Having  performed  the  little 
ceremony  that  lady  moved  away  to  talk  to  some 
other  guests. 

"I  admired,"  Gaston  observed,  smiling,  "your 
intrepidity  at  the  moment  of  your  arrival." 

"I  resented  only  the  affectation  of  those  gentle- 
men. All  the  Miss  Shenstones'  dogs  are  old  friends 
of  mine,  and  they  recognized  me  perfectly.  One's 
friends  should  not  disown  one  in  public." 

Few  people,  thought  Gaston,  would  be  less  likely 
to  be  so  disowned  than  Madame  de  Valmondois. 

"It  may  have  been  humility,"  he  suggested. 

"Humility  should  be  less  vociferous.  If  you  wish 
to  cut  me,  when  next  we  meet,  till  you  are  sure  of 
being  remembered,  I  trust  you  will  not  be  quite  so 
noisy  about  it." 

"Perhaps  they  were  thinking  of  the  story  of  the 
poor  and  obscure  noble  from  the  country  who  bit 
Louis  XIV's  hand,  on  being  presented,  to  secure 
remembrance." 

"He  secured  more  than  the  little  he  aimed  at. 
For  if  the  King  forgot  him,  posterity,  we  see,  has 
not." 

They  were  walking  toward  a  part  of  the  garden 
called  the  Bosquet,  where,  in  the  midst  of  the  small 
thicket,  a  small  white  temple  crowned  a  low  mound; 
a  semicircular  pond  at  the  foot  of  the  knoll  reflected 
the  little  temple. 

"It  is  pretty,"  said  Madame  de  Valmondois,  "but 
I  do  not  care  about  it.  It  is  too  obviously  a  sin- 
cere flattery  of  the  Music  Pavilion  in  the  Little 
Trianon." 

"You  despise  flatteries,  even  when  sincere?" 

"I  do  not  admire  small  imitations.  There  are 
thousands  of  copies  of  Versailles — its  grandiosity. 
Louis  XIV  had  not  a  faultless  taste,  but  it  was  large. 


154  THE  TIDEPVAY 

If  he  had  laid  out  Versailles  on  a  less  ponderous 
scale  it  would  have  been  cittish." 

"You  know  Fontainebleau  also,  no  doubt?" 

"Yes,  and  care  much  more  for  it.  Fontainebleau 
is  history;  Versailles  is  only  autobiography,  and 
self-conscious;  the  autobiography  of  a  big  little  man 
whom  I  do  not  heartily  admire." 

"If  you  would  think  of  it  as  the  cenotaph  of  a 
great  monarchy,  its  grandiosity,  perhaps,  would  seem 
more  fit.  St.  Denis  was  the  burial  place  of  our  Kings, 
but  Versailles  is  the  tomb  of  our  royalty." 

In  spite  of  the  somewhat  phrasic  quality  of  his 
little  speech,  the  simplicity  and  quietness  of  his  tone 
saved  the  young  man's  words  from  the  pitfall  of 
magniloquence  near  to  which  they  certainly  ven- 
tured. 

And  Madame  de  Valmondois,  who  knew  the  his- 
tory of  his  country  pretty  well,  was  fully  aware  that 
nearly  his  whole  family,  as  it  had  existed  then,  had 
died  for  the  crime  of  possessing  a  name  that  meant 
loyalty  to  the  monarchy  in  its  agony. 

They  stood  close  to  the  water's  edge. 

"I  cannot  say,"  she  confessed,  "in  spite  of  my 
strictures,  that  the  reflections  are  exquisite." 

She  raised  her  eyes  to  compare  them  with  the 
originals;  his  were  still  bent  upon  the  water,  and  one 
reflected  image  really  held  his  gaze. 

"No  one  could  deny  it,"  he  said  gravely. 

"The  reality,"  she  said,  "is  not  so  perfect  as 
the  shadow.  If  logic  were  true  it  would  be.  But  the 
reflections  down  there  discard  all  that  spoils  the 
reality.  How,  I  wonder?  The  real  little  temple 
is  an  affectation,  a  courtier-ism;  the  one  down  there 
is  lovely." 

"Down  there  it  is  a  picture.  Only  supreme  artists 
can  make  their  pictures  better  than  the  original  when 
the  original  is  lovely;  even  a  supreme  artist  has  to 


A  FRANCO-AMERICAN  ENCOUNTER     155 

fall  short  of  an  original  that  is  itself  perfect.  But, 
if  there  is  obvious  imperfection  in  the  reality  a  pic- 
ture can  ignore  it.  Is  that  the  answer  to  your 
riddle  ? 

"No.      But  I  have  found  it." 

"Will  you  tell  me  ?" 

She  paused,  the  fraction  of  an  instant,  and  then 
answered,  "Man  arranged  all  that,"  pointing  to  the 
other  side  of  the  water,  "and  man  built  that  little 
temple.  God  arranged  all  this,  and  only  He  built  the 
temple  down  there." 

"Is  that,"  he  wondered,  "religion  or  mere 
poetry?" 

And  he  did  not  wish  it  to  be  poetry. 

His  eyes  had  followed  hers  down  into  the  water, 
and  they  could  look  at  her  image  there  without 
intrusiveness  or  impertinence. 

"God,"  he  thought,  "certainly  made  that;  one  of 
His  chefs-d'ceuvres." 

"You  see,"  she  said,  "that  the  charm  of  all  down 
there  is  like  the  charm  of  mountains  in  the  clouds. 
No  one's  foot  ever  climbed  that  little  path  to  the 
temple,  or  ever  will ;  no  one  will  ever  scratch  a  vul- 
gar name  on  those  white  walls  down  there." 

He  perceived  that  her  tone,  though  earnest,  was 
grave.  Perhaps  a  certain  shyness  had  assailed  her 
after  her  use  of  a  Name  so  great  that  most  of  us  will 
not  easily  use  it  to  one  another.  And  they  were 
strangers.  He  was  half  sorry,  but  he  thought  him- 
self bound  to  suit  his  tone  to  that  which  she  chose, 
and  he  laughed  a  little. 

"I  am  afraid  some  one  will  walk  up  your  little 
path!"  he  said,  and  pointed  across  the  water. 

A  gardener  was  going  up  to  the  temple. 

"He  cannot  walk  up  my  path  unless  I  let  him," 
she  declared.  "I  will  not  look  down.  Besides,  a 
gardener  doesn't  matter.     Adam  was  a  gardener." 


156  THE  TIDEWAY 

"What  you  call  in  English  a  husbandman.  Rather 
an  unlucky  husband." 

"At  all  events  he  had  no  trouble  over  his  love- 
making.  No  rivals  and  no  uncertainty.  He  woke  to 
find  himself  married." 

"And  with  a  hole  near  his  heart.  The  hole  his 
sons  often  inherit;  the  heaven-sent  spouse  not  so 
often." 

"Come,  M.  de  Saulmoz,"  said  the  lady,  turning 
away  from  the  water's  edge,  "confess  that  a  man 
prefers  to  find  the  heaven-sent  wife  for  himself,  in- 
stead of  having  to  submit  to  such  a  rather  dictatorial 
heavenly  provision." 

"Oh!  if  finding  were  all!  But  one  may  find  her 
for  oneself  without  the  possibility  of  gaining  her  for 
oneself.  Adam  had  no  embarras  de  choice;  Eve  or 
nothing.  But,  then,  Eve  v/as  in  the  same  predica- 
ment; it  was  Adam  or  old-maidhood." 

"How  short  history  would  have  been  had  she 
chosen  old-maidhood!" 

Madame  de  Valmondois,  who  always  listened 
attentively,  had  noted  with  satisfaction  how  the 
young  man  at  her  side  had  not  left  the  first  half  of 
his  last  speech  to  stand  alone.  Had  it  been  the  con- 
clusion of  his  utterance  her  own  reply  would  not 
have  been  so  easy.  "He  is  well  bred,"  she  thought. 
Of  course,  she  had  become  aware  that  he  admired 
her,  but  he  had  not  made  compliments. 

"By  the  way,"  she  observed,  "I  noted  just  now 
that  you  can  talk  English,  though  it  was  only  one 
sentence." 

"My  father,  you  see,  was  our  Ambassador  at 
Washington  till  three  years  ago,  and  I  was  there 
during  the  whole  of  his  stay." 

"That,"  said  she  laughing,  "would  enable  you, 
according  to  some  impertinent  people,  to  talk  Amer- 


ican." 


A  FRANCO-AMERICAN  ENCOUNTER     157 

"Do  _>'o«  talk  American?" 

"Of  course,  I  can't  tell,"  she  answered  In  English. 
"You  must  judge  for  yourself." 

Until  they  had  rejoined  the  group  around  the  tea- 
tables  she  continued  to  speak  English. 

"If  that  is  American,"  Gaston  assured  himself, 
"Adam  and  Eve  must  have  been  Americans  before 
the  Fall!" 

Ill 

"Is  she  not  charming!"  asked  Miss  Essie  Shen- 
stone.  Tea  was  over,  and  she  was  walking  with  M. 
de  Saulmoz.  Piou-piou  escorted  them  with  bland 
dignity  and  looked  as  if  butter  would  not  melt  in  his 
mouth. 

"She  has  a  quite  singular  charm.  It  seems  a  pity 
that  more  quite  young  girls  can't  be  widows !  As  a 
rule  they  are  not  interesting;  then  they  are  mar- 
ried, and  their  interestingness  Is  more  Important  to 
their  husbands  than  to  the  public.  I  do  not  mean  to 
say  that  Madame  de  Valmondois  ov/es  her  charm 
to  her  misfortune.  Her  grace  and  beauty,  her  pecu- 
liar quality,  do  not  come  from  her  widowhood,  of 
course.  But  the  fact  that  she  is  at  once  a  young 
girl,  and  married,  and  unmarried,  all  help.  So 
much  dignity  w^ould  seem  strange  in  an  unmarried 
girl  of  her  age  unless  she  happened  to  be  a  royal 
personage.  Yet  she  is  thoroughly  young,  and  she 
has  no  pose;  her  dignity  is  not  that  of  place,  but  of 
quality." 

"We  are  all  of  us  devoted  to  her,"  said  Miss 
Essie,  and  Gaston  perceived  that  the  strength  and 
conviction  of  his  eulogy  of  Madame  de  Valmondois 
pleased  his  friend. 

"If  I  were  you,"  Miss  Essie  continued,  "I  should 
call  upon  her.     She  receives  on  Thursdays." 


158  THE  TIDEWAY 

"She  would,  perhaps,  think  it  intrusion." 

"Oh,  no,  I  shall  tell  her  I  asked  you  to  do  so." 

She  gave  the  address — a  number  in  the  Rue 
Bayard — and  there  was  no  fear  of  his  forgetting 
it.  After  a  while  they  began  to  speak  of  the  assassi- 
nation of  the_  Archduke  Ferdinand,  the  news  of 
which  had  arrived  that  day. 

"Many  of  the  Austrians  will  be  easily  consoled," 
he  said,  "he  has  always  been  much  disliked." 

Neither  of  them  had  the  least  idea  that  the  hor- 
rible crirne  would  prove  the  match  that  was  to  set  a 
smouldering  Europe  all  ablaze. 

He  was  rather  glad  that  the  very  next  day  was 
not  Thursday;  for  though  he  was  impatient  to  go 
and  see  Madame  de  Valmondois,  the  very  next  day 
would  have  seemed  too  soon;  yet  he  could  not  have 
waited  a  whole  week.  On  Thursday  afternoon  about 
four  o'clock  he  was  on  his  way  to  her.  It  now 
seemed  to  him  a  very  long  time  since  they  had  met; 
for,  though  he  had  not  done  a  great  deal  in  the 
meantime,  he  had  been  away  from  Paris  for  a  whole 
day,  and  during  his  absence  he  had  thought  continu- 
ally of  her.  He  was  by  no  means  a  man  liable  to 
falling  in  love  at  first  sight.  He  was  not,  indeed,  in 
general  what  is  called  susceptible.  Somewhat  silent 
and  reserved,  those  of  his  friends  who  knew  him 
well  enough  to  take  liberties  had  been  rather 
disposed  to  chaff  him  as  being  too  much  centered 
in  himself  to  have  very  open  eyes  for  ladies' 
charms. 

Now,  however,  he  was  quite  sure  that  he  had 
found  his  heaven-sent  lady.  But  he  was  neither  vain 
nor  sanguine,  and  he  did  not  Hatter  himself  that  she 
even  took  an  interest  in  him.  The  moon  does  not 
drop  into  our  arms  because  we  recognize  her  splen- 
dor, any  more  than  in  obedience  to  our  tears.  This 
moon  of  his  seemed  very  far  up  in  an  aloof  sky, 


A  FRANCO-AMERICAN  ENCOUNTER     159 

and  a  sky  that  was  too  serene  and  clear  not,  as  he 
thought,  to  imply  a  certain  coldness. 

Still,  he  was  a  man,  and  what  a  man  could  do 
he  would  do,  however  difficult  it  might  be  and  how- 
ever long. 

He  was  told,  as  he  expected,  that  Madame  was 
at  home;  but  the  footman,  a  little  to  his  surprise, 
was  not  sure  that  she  was  visible;  he  would,  how- 
ever, go  and  see. 

"The  reason,"  Madame  de  Valmondois  explained 
as  soon  as  the  footman  had  closed  the  door,  after 
ushering  Gaston  into  her  salon,  "the  reason  why  you 
were  not  at  once  told  I  was  lisible  is  that  for  this 
week  I  had  changed  my  day  for  receiving.  A  friend 
of  mine  has  her  fete  to-day,  and  she  begged  me  to 
come.  I  must  go  about  five.  So  I  have  put  my 
own  day  off  till  to-morrow.  If  I  have  to  leave  you 
at  five  perhaps  you  will  come  to-morrow — I  ask  it 
because  Madame  de  St.  Firmin  will  be  here,  I  know; 
she  is  a  very  old  friend,  she  tells  me,  of  your 
mother's,  and  wants  to  meet  you.  But,  do  sit  down. 
I  need  not  go  till  five." 

Gaston  thought  his  mistake  a  most  happy  one. 
There  was  to-morrow  to  the  good,  and  he  had  to- 
day as  well.  And  to-day  he  had  a  tete  a  tete,  which 
he  certainly  had  not  expected.  He  also  perceived 
with  satisfaction  that  Madame  de  Valmondois  had 
been  speaking  of  him  to  his  mother's  friend. 

"Oh,"  he  said,  "I  have  often  heard  of  Madame 
de  St.  Firmin.  My  mother  even  tried  to  persuade 
her  to  come  and  stay  with  us  at  Washington,  but  the 
journey  was  too  long  for  her." 

"You  know  she  is  old — not  the  contemporary  of 
Madame,  your  mother:  she  had  been  her  mother's 
friend.  She  is,  however,  entirely  delightful:  I  like 
her  better  than  almost  any  one  I  know.  I  must  tell 
you  that  she  was  immensely  interested  to  hear  about 


i6o  THE  TIDEWAY 

you,  and  wanted  to  know  far  more  than  I  could  tell 
her.  That  is  why  you  must  come  and  answer  all  her 
questions  for  yourself." 

Presently  it  appeared  that  the  old  lady  had  wished 
to  know  what  he  was  going  to  be. 

"Of  course  I  could  not  tell  her,"  said  Madame. 

"I'm  not  absolutely  sure  that  /  can.  I  have  only 
finished  my  military  service  a  few  months  ago  and 
since  then  I  have  been  to  London  and  St.  Peters- 
burg. Before  my  military  service  I  was  for  a  little 
over  a  year  unpaid  attache  to  my  father.  But  I  have 
not  decided  to  enter  diplomacy." 

"You  have  just  finished  your  service  in  the  army !" 

"Yes.  I  look  rather  old,  do  you  think.  It  is 
true:  most  people  say  I  look  six  and  twenty,  or 
more." 

"Six  and  twenty  is  not  very  old  I" 

"No.  But  my  mother  says  it  is  indiscreet  of  me  to 
look  so  old.  You  see  she  is  only  forty-three  and 
you  would  say  she  was  not  more  than  five  and  thirty. 
When  one  is  beautiful  and  looks  still  young  it  is  a 
great  lack  of  tact  in  one's  son  to  seem  nearly  thirty." 

"Madame  de  St.  Firmin  showed  me  the  portrait 
of  the  Marquise.      She  is  certainly  beautiful." 

It  is  not  necessary  to  detail  all  their  talk.  It  is 
enough  to  say  that  Gaston  did  not  go  away  much 
before  five  o'clock  and  that  Madame  de  Val- 
mondois  did  not  appear  to  think  he  was  stay- 
ing too  long.  Of  herself  she  said  nothing,  but  in 
him  and  his  life  in  America  she  showed  a  sincere 
interest. 

"^  demain,"  she  reminded  him  as  he  took  his 
leave.  "I  shall  meet  your  mother's  friend  in  half  an 
hour,  and  shall  promise  her  that  to-morrow  she  can 
ask  you  all  about  your  mother  and  yourself." 

"Madame,  there  is  no  fear  of  my  forgetting  to- 


A  FRANCO-AMERICAN  ENCOUNTER     i6i 

morrow,"  he  said;  but  he  did  not  say  aloud,  "though 
no  such  person  as  Madame  de  St.  Firmin  existed  in 
the  world."  In  the  street  he  enjoyed  very  pleasant 
reflections. 

"The  merest  beginning  of  a  prelude,"  he  thought, 
"but  not  a  set-back  at  the  start,  at  all  events.  And 
the  excellent  Demoiselles  Shenstone  have  asked  me 
to  dinner  on  Sunday:  I  have  an  intuition  that  they 
have  also  asked  Madame  de  Valmondois :  I  wonder 
if  she  said  Yes.  If  Madame  de  St.  Firmin  really 
loves  my  mother  she  shall  invite  me  too.  There  is 
another  avenue.  If  she  gives  me  the  chance  I  shall 
frequenter  that  old  lady,  and  it  is  hard  if  I  do  not 
meet  Madame  there  also." 

IV 

He  had  no  idea  that  in  the  old  lady  he  had  never 
seen  he  already  had  an  unavowed  but  eager  ally. 
She  loved  no  young  person  as  she  loved  Madeleine 
de  Valmondois,  and  she  loved  Gaston's  mother  for 
her  own  sake  and  for  her  mother's.  Gaston's 
grandmother  had  been  the  dearest  to  her  of  all  the 
friends  of  her  far-away  youth.  Now  she  was  de- 
termined to  find  in  Gaston  himself  the  renewal  and 
reincarnation  of  the  qualities  that  had  made  his 
mother,  and  her  mother,  dear  to  her.  Certainly  he 
w^ould  have  no  difficulty  in  attaining  her  intimacy : 
but  sl^  went  further  than  that.  He  was,  she  de- 
cided, to  prove  the  one  young  man  worthy  of  Made- 
leine. 

About  an  hour  after  he  had  left  the  Rue  Bayard 
the  old  lady  and  the  young  one  were  talking  of  him. 

"So  I  shall  see  him  to-morrow,"  said  Madame  de 
St.  Firmin.  "Why  don't  you  tell  me  what  he  is 
like?" 

"You  know  very  well  that  it  is  the  portraits  of 


1 62  THE   TIDEWAY 

dogs  that  I  can  paint.  You  insisted  on  my  painting 
yours,  and  said  it  was  not  like  anybody." 

'Tm  sure  he  is  not  a  dog." 

"Of  course  not.  But  I  can't  describe  him.  He  is 
tall  and  rather  lean.  And  serious.  And  he  talks 
well,  but  solemnly,  and  not  very  much.  To-day, 
however,  he  talked  more." 

"Yes,  but  is  he  handsome?    He  must  be." 

"Then  you  know  more  than  I  do.  I  really  cannot 
tell  you  if  he  is  handsome." 

"He  must  be.  His  mother  is  absolutely  beauti- 
ful.    You  have  seen  her  portrait." 

"He  is  not  at  all  like  it." 

"But  his  father  was  a  very  handsome  man.  All 
the  de  Saulmoz  men  are." 

"Then  he  must  be  handsome.  He  is  a  man  and 
a  de  Saulmoz." 

"You  are  very  annoying.  I  am  devoured  by 
curiosity." 

"Don't  let  it  eat  you  all  up  in  twenty-four  hours. 
This  time  to-morrow  you  will  know  exactly  what 
he  is  like." 

"Twenty-four  hours  is  a  long  time  at  my  age. 
Tell  me  now." 

"I  have  told  you  all  I  know.  Nearly  all.  He 
was  not  sea-sick  in  crossing  the  Atlantic,  but  he  was 
in  crossing  the  Channel.  He  wears  black  and  white 
hats." 

"Black  and  white  hats!" 

"A  black  one  to-day,  a  white  one  the  other  day 
at  Versailles." 

"How  tiresome  you  are!     Has  he  no  eyes?" 

"Two,  so  far  as  I  noticed.  Tm  pretty  sure  he  has 
two.  Had  there  been  fewer,  or  more,  I  should 
have  remarked  it." 

"Of  what  color  are  they?" 

"I  don't  remember.     To  save  you  trouble  I  may 


A  FRANCO-AMERICAN  ENCOUNTER    163 

as  well  say  that  he  has  a  mouth   (rather  too  firm) 
and  a  chin  (rather  much  of  It)." 

"No  nose,  I  gather?" 

"Oh  yes.  I  did  not  perceive  anything  approach- 
ing to  deformity  in  him.  Here  comes  Miss  Essie 
Shenstone,  ask  her.     She  knows  him  much  better." 

On  the  following  day  Gaston  went  to  keep  his 
appointment :  and  he  did  keep  it,  though  something 
happened  on  the  way  that  chilled  his  eagerness, 
chilled  him  to  the  marrow  of  his  life. 

Turning  out  of  the  Avenue  Montaigne  into  the 
Place  Francois  ler,  he  noticed  carelessly  that  two 
elderly  gentlemen  were  talking  together.  They 
stood  still  near  the  middle  of  the  round  place  and 
one  of  them  had  his  back  to  the  Rue  Bayard.  He 
might  be  about  fifty-five:  the  other  was  older,  and, 
to  judge  by  the  loud  voice  in  which  his  friend  ad- 
dressed him,  slightly  deaf. 

Gaston  had  to  cross  within  a  few  yards  of  them. 
There  was  no  traffic,  and  there  was  no  one  else  in 
the  place. 

"Austria  is  behaving  very  badly,"  almost  shouted 
the  elder  gentleman,  who  endowed  all  the  world 
with  his  own  deafness.  "God  knows  what'll  come 
of  it." 

"She  always  does.  Her  politique  is  subterrane- 
ous. Eh,  well !  we  shall  see.  I've  just  been  to  the 
Hotel  Valmondois.  The  Duchess,  you  know,  is 
marrying  again." 

"Already!     To  Monsieur  de  Greoulse?" 

"Not  at  all!     To  Henri  Flamboin.   ..." 

"Tiens!     Beauty  and  the  beast?" 

"The  beast  all  right.    As  for  the  beauty  ..." 

Gaston  did  not  slacken  his  pace  at  all;  what  he 
heard  he  heard  just  before  passing  close  to  the  two 
gentlemen,  as  he  passed,  and  as  he  was  leaving 
them  behind.     He  did  not  turn  his  head  by  a  frac- 


1 64  THE  TIDEWAY 

tion  of  an  inch;  and  the  gentleman  who  alluded 
somewhat  dubiously  to  the  question  of  Madame's 
beauty  certainly  lowered  his  voice  then. 

Gaston  walked  on  into  the  Rue  Bayard  and  his 
pace  did  not  alter;  but  his  face  had  altered,  and  he 
told  himself  plainly  that  his  life  had  altered.  Every- 
thing had  changed.  Ten  minutes  ago  the  sky  had 
been  overcast,  and  a  black  shower  had  threatened, 
but  Gaston  had  not  accused  the  day  of  being  dull 
or  gloomy.  Now  the  rollicking  breeze  had  rolled 
the  big  cloud  away,  and  there  was  abundant  sun- 
light. But  to  Gaston  the  garish  light  on  the  white 
houses  seemed  ghastly — like  a  glare  on  dead  faces. 
He  seemed  hardly  to  remember  the  words  he  had 
heard,  but  they  had  done  his  business  for  him. 
What  he  appeared  to  remember  most  in  them  were 
the  things  that  made  no  difference. 

"  'The  Hotel  Valmondois,'  "  he  repeated  to  him- 
self; "it  is  a  good  house,  and  has  its  courtyard  and 
porte-cochere;  it  is  an  hotel,  of  course,  but  I  did  not 
know  it  was  a  family  house.  That  fat  idiot  did  not 
seem  sure  about  the  beauty.  It  is  strange  I  did  not 
think  of  knocking  him  down." 

It  was  bitter  to  him  that  the  other  man  should  at 
once  have  been  ready  to  couple  a  name  with  that 
lady's,  the  moment  he  heard  of  her  as  betrothed. 
A  Monsieur  de  Greoulse.  And  there  was  another 
man.  Two  men  at  least,  anyway.  He  had  some- 
how felt  a  certainty  that  since  her  husband's  death 
there  had  been  no  man — and  there  were  two. 

Everything  was  changed.  He  had  really  been 
looking  forward  to  meeting  his  mother's  old  friend, 
quite  apart  from  his  selfish  interest  in  making 
friends  with  her.  He  had  thought  of  the  amuse- 
ment and  pleasure  it  would  be  to  write  and  tell  his 
mother  all  about  her.  Now  he  hated  the  necessity 
of  meeting  her;  it  would  be  sheer  penance  and  cjene. 
He  felt  almost  an  antipathy  to  the  old  woman. 


A  FRANCO-AMERICAN  ENCOUNTER     165 

He  had  been  covering  the  Miss  Shenstones  with 
his  benisons  for  having  asked  him  to  dinner;  now 
he  looked  forward  with  repulsion  to  the  idea  of 
meeting  Madame  de  Valmondois  there.  Yet  he 
had  no  idea  of  not  dining  with  them;  no  idea  of 
not  going  to  the  "Hotel  Valmondois."  That  he 
had  not  was  characteristic  of  him.  He  always  kept 
to  engagements;  he  seldom  changed  his  mind  or  his 
plans. 

Only  the  plan  of  his  life  was  changed.  He  had 
not  changed.  That  was  the  worst  of  it.  It  had 
revolted  him  to  hear  two  men's  names  joined  with 
Madame  de  Valmondois's  in  the  space  of  a  few 
seconds,  but  he  had  not  changed  his  mind  about  her. 
Ten  minutes  ago  he  had  told  himself  what  a  long 
task  the  winning  of  her  must  be,  what  a  hard  one, 
no  doubt;  but  he  knew  now  that  he  had  not  doubted, 
that  he  had  simply  determined  she  should  share  his 
life  with  him.  His  life  was  gone;  there  would  be 
nothing  for  anyone  to  share. 

"  'Already.'  That  old  man  must  be  a  fool.  He 
was  an  insolvent  fool.  Had  not  the  Due  de  Val- 
mondois been  dead  three  years?  Though  she  was 
only  twenty,  he  had  been  dead  three  years.  'Al- 
ready,' indeed !  Had  she  not  a  right  to  marry 
to-morrow?" 

All  the  same,  she  had  no  right  to  marry  anyone 
but  himself. 

The  "Hotel  Valmondois"  was  down  at  the  end 
of  the  Rue  Bayard,  near  the  Cours  le  Reine.  He 
had  reached  the  outer  door,  opening  into  the  court- 
yard. He  could  hear  a  Seine  boat  screaming  on 
the  river.  It  was  as  hideous  as  if  a  gamin  had 
shrieked  suddenly  in  his  ear.  All  the  same  he  turned 
in;  the  big  doors  stood  open,  and  a  huge  Limousine 
car  stood  under  the  porte-cochere.  A  large,  fat, 
pale  man  was  getting  out  of  it.  It  was  a  car  that 
spoke,   almost  shouted  of  opulence,  but  there  was 


1 66  THE  TIDEWAY 

no  coronet  on  It.  The  fat  man's  neck  bulged  out 
behind  over  his  tall,  stiff,  shining  white  collar.  He 
was  too  spruce  for  his  age.  AH  these  trivialities 
Gaston  noticed. 

V 

Gaston  was  ushered  through  the  salon  where  the 
Duchess  had  received  him  yesterday  (yesterday!  it 
seemed  five  years  ago)  into  a  much  larger  one, 
where  there  were  already  a  number  of  people.  She 
was  accepting  the  greetings  of  the  fat  man  out  of 
the  Limousine.  Gaston  was  almost  surprised  that 
he  should  have  been  able  to  get  upstairs  so  quickly; 
he  ought  to  be  out  of  breath. 

Then  M.  de  Saulmoz  was  announced,  and  the 
Duchess  moved  a  step  or  so  towards  him. 

"Madame  de  St.  Firmin  is  here  already.  She  is 
quite  impatient,"  she  said,  smiling.  "Come  and  be 
presented  to  her.  It  will  take  you  an  hour  to  an- 
swer all  her  questions." 

All  the  same  she  did  not  quite  immediately  take 
him  to  the  old  lady.  She  kept  him  at  her  side  for 
a  few  moments  and  spoke  of  something  else. 

"Two  Miss  Shenstones  are  coming,"  she  told 
him,  "I  have  promised  to  dine  with  them  on  Sun- 
day, their  little  dinners  on  Sundays  are  an  institu- 
tion. Always  en  petit  comite,  you  are  not  asked 
unless  you  are  thoroughly  approved." 

"I  am  proud  to  say,  then,  that  I  also  am  dining 
with  them  on  Sunday." 

"Voila.  Your  imprimaton!  Madame  de  St. 
Firmin  is  glaring  at  me.  Come !  For  an  hour 
there  will  be  more  and  more  people,  then  fewer  and 
fewer.  By  the  time  Madame  has  done  with  you  I 
shall  be  able  to  talk  to  you  myself.     Come !" 

"She  makes  much  of  me,"  thought  Gaston,  "be- 
cause she  is  engaged.  She  can  be  civil  without 
arriere  pensee.' 


A  FRANCO-AMERICAN  ENCOUNTER    167 

But  he  only  smiled  and  followed  her  to  the  sofa 
where  Madame  de  St.  Firmin  was  sitting. 

"Now,  Celestine,"  the  old  lady  said  to  a  young 
lady  who  was  trying  to  talk  to  her,  "you  are  to  go 
away.     Monsieur  de  Saulmoz  is  to  sit  there." 

And  she  immediately  set  him  down  at  her  side. 

"I  will  leave  you,"  said  their  hostess.  "Mon- 
sieur de  Saulmoz  can  tell  you  for  himself,  if  he  is 
handsome!"  she  laughed,  and  bending  down  almost 
whispered  to  Madame  de  St.  Firmin:  "I  had  better 
go  and  talk  a  little  more  to  Monsieur  Flamboln;  I 
cut  him  a  little  short  on  M.  de  Saulmoz's  arrival." 

She  went  away  and  immediately  began  a  small 
conversation  with  the  fat  man  of  the  Limousine. 
At  first  he  looked  a  little  sulky,  as  if  conscious  of 
having  been  neglected.  Then  he  thawed  and  as- 
sumed a  somewhat  pawing  manner — perhaps  his 
way  when  he  wished  to  be  charming  with  ladies. 
His  ample  chest  was  turned  towards  Madame  de 
St.  Firmin's  sofa.  The  Duchess's  slim  back  was  to- 
wards it,  and  Gaston  could  no  longer  see  her  face. 

"Who,"  asked  Gaston,  "is  M.  Flamboin?" 

"Oh,"  replied  the  old  woman,  "he  is  a  very  happy 
man.     But  I  do  not  admire  him." 

"Is  it  necessary  to  admire  him?  Why  is  he 
happy?" 

"Because  he  has  induced  someone  who  might 
have  known  better  to  make  him  so.  It  is  not  In  the 
least  necessary  to  admire  him.  I  do  not  care  at  all 
how  rich  he  Is,  his  money  has  nothing  to  do  with 
me.     I  like  people  to  marry  in  their  own  class." 

"So  do  I.    What  is  his  class?" 

"Goodness  knows.  He  is  what  they  call  a  finan- 
cier. And  he  is  ambitious,  and  wants  to  be  a  per- 
sonage. But  I  do  not  see  why  people  in  our  monde 
should  help  him;  especially  by  marrying  him." 

"Nor  I.     But  I  suppose  it  is  a  question  of  taste." 


1 68  THE  TlDEfVAY 

"A  question  of  the  loss  of  taste.  But,  M.  At 
Saulmoz,  I  did  not  come  here  to  talk  of  M.  Flam- 
boin.  I  want  to  talk  about  your  mother,  and  your 
grandmother,  too." 

And  she  usually  did  what  she  wanted,  and  so 
Gaston  and  she  talked  for  very  nearly  the  hour 
Madame  de  Valmondois  had  prophesied  about  the 
subject  the  old  lady  chose. 

"Mind,"  she  said,  at  last,  "you  are  to  come  to 
me  very  often.  If  not  I  shall  write  and  complain 
to  your  mother.  I  am  too  old  to  receive  many  peo- 
ple, but  the  ones  I  like  come  often." 

Here  was  exactly  what  Gaston  had  wanted;  now 
it  was  no  good.  All  the  same  he  promised,  not 
eagerly;  and  he  was  not  the  man  to  say  Yes  and 
mean  No. 

Madame  de  Valmondois  did  not  talk  to  M.  Flam- 
boin  for  anything  like  an  hour.  Far  too  many  ar- 
rivals of  other  visitors  demanded  her  attention. 
But  the  big  millionaire  did  not  turn  away  with  a 
displeased  air;  in  fact,  he  moved  about  the  room 
with  an  appearance  of  complaisance,  and  it  was 
not  difficult  to  guess  that,  as  he  went  from  one  ac- 
quaintance to  another,  he  was  receiving  congratula- 
tions. He  seemed  to  purr,  where  he  did  not  paw. 
Gaston  was  pleased  to  be  able  to  decide  that  he 
was  altogether  loathsome. 

When  M.  Flamboin  departed  it  was  almost  in 
the  wake  of  a  lady  of  about  his  own  age,  also  stout, 
and  entirely  free  from  distinction  of  manner,  but 
with  some  appearance  of  having  been  pretty.  She 
had  a  little  of  his  purring  way,  and  Gaston  would 
not  have  heard  with  surprise  that  she  was  his  sister. 

"Had  M.  Flamboin  a  sister?"  he  asked  his  old 
friend  on  the  sofa. 

"A  sister?  Oh,  yes!  A  Madame  Rou-Roussel, 
a  Roubaise;  as  rich  as  he  is.    She  was  here  just  now. 


A  FRANCO-AMERICAN  ENCOUNTER    169 

I  suppose  she  came  on  the  strength  of  the  approach- 
nig  relationship.  That's  the  result  of  those  sort  of 
adventures.  AH  the  Duchess's  family  will  have  to 
see  Madame  Roubaise  panting  up  their  stairs,  ex- 
cept me  !     I  will  not." 

"Why  do  you  suppose  the  Duchess  marries  such 
a  man?" 

"Dieu  salt!  But  some  women  like  to  make  a 
man.  He  is  pushing  and  not  a  fool,  and  means  to 
arrive.  Perhaps  she  intends  to  be  the  wife  of  a 
Minister.  No  doubt  she  could  help  him.  Had 
she  any  children  they  might  have  stood  in  the  way. 
A  woman  of  our  world  would  not  like  to  have  to 
present  such  a  stepfather  to  her  son." 

"Her  son  would  be  rather  young  to  object!" 

"As  her  son  has  never  been  born  we  can't 
say.  ,  .  .  But  I  really  don't  want  to  talk  about  M. 
Flamboin,  nor  his  marriage;  though,  for  that  mat- 
ter, it  is  what  everyone  is  talking  of.  That  nuisance 
will  not  last  long  as  they  are  to  be  married  without 
delay." 

As  Madame  de  Valmondois  had  said  would  be 
the  case,  there  were  not  so  many  people  in  the  room 
by  the  time  Gaston's  long  talk  with  Madame  de  St. 
Firmin  was  finished.  Still,  it  was  very  far  from  be- 
ing empty. 

"Gaston,"  said  the  old  lady  (she  had  already 
told  him  that  she  must  call  him  by  his  baptismal 
name),  "Madeleine  is  talking  to  no  one;  and  here 
is  a  crony  of  mine  bearing  down  upon  me.  Will 
you  not  go  and  talk  to  the  Duchess?" 

How  welcome  such  a  hint  would  have  been  had 
he  not  heard  this  hateful  news !  As  it  was  he  acted 
on  it  chiefly  as  a  fitting  courtesy  to  his  hostess. 

As  he  walked  across  the  room  he  thought  how 
beautiful  the  girl  was;  and  she  looked  more  youth- 
ful without  the  hat  which  she  had  been  wearing  on 


170  THE  TIDEWAY 

both  the  other  occasions.  Had  he  really  only  seen 
her  twice?  Could  he  really  have  only  known  her 
live  days  and  her  marriage  be  so  horrible  a  blow 
to  him? 

"I  have  answered  all  Madame  de  St.  Firmin's 
questions,"  he  began.  "As  you  told  me  they  were 
numerous." 

"She  was  quite  savage  with  me  because  I  could 
not  tell  her  what  you  intended  to  be.  She  seemed 
resolved  that  you  should  be  something  important. 
Not  to  be  ambitious,  she  says,  is  idleness  in  anyone 
who  has  the  means  to  be  ambitious." 

"FoM  think  men  should  be  ambitious?" 

"Oh,  I?  Well,  yes;  I  think  a  man  should  do 
something.  If  he  is  poor  it  is  always  something  that 
he  should  work  for  his  living.  If  he  is  already  rich, 
or  well  ofF,  and  need  not  work  to  live,  he  should  live 
to  work  so  as  to  be  something." 

("She  is  not  thinking  of  me,"  he  told  himself, 
"she  is  thinking  of  M.  Flamboin.") 

He,  therefore,  only  smiled,  and  bowed  as  though 
to  accept  her  judgment,  without  comment. 

At  once  she  felt  that  his  cool  politeness  amounted 
to  a  sort  of  reserve  if  not  exactly  to  a  rebuke. 

"Nevertheless,"  she  added  quietly,  "one  should 
mind  one's  own  business." 

She  would  certainly  show  no  more  interest  in 
what  he  might  have  been  saying  to  Madame  de  St. 
Firmin. 

"I  do  not  quite  understand,"  he  said  simply. 
And  he  turned  his  rather  somber  eyes  to  meet  hers. 

"No?  I  was,  perhaps,  seeming  to  lay  down  my 
own  ideas  as  a  sort  of  principle.  My  ideas  can  cer- 
tainly not  be  principles  for — other  people." 

He  saw  that  he  had  offended  her,  or  rather  that 
he  had  somehow  repelled  her. 

"Madame,"  he  said,  "your  principle  is  altogether 


A  FRANCO-AMERICAN  ENCOUNTER    171 

to  my  taste;  and  that  you  should  frankly  tell  me 
what  you  think  (you  remember  I  had  asked  you) 
was  simply  a  kindness.  I  am  not  as  it  happens 
poor  enough  to  have  to  work  to  live.  So  far  as 
I  can  see  work  will  be  the  only  thing  worth  living 
for." 

His  eyes  were  certainly  somber,  and,  though  his 
words  were  not,  their  tone  was.  She  was  surprised; 
for  on  their  two  previous  meetings  he  had  struck 
her  as  being  grave  but  by  no  means  melancholy. 

"I  am  glad  my  pronouncement  did  not  displease 
you,"  she  said,  "for  a  moment  I  thought  it  had — I 
am  rather  a  new  acquaintance  to  be  dispersing  my 
advice." 

"Oh,  Madame!  I  must  be  a  stupid  fellow  to 
have  given  you  such  an  impression.  Your  advice 
I  should  know  to  be  an  honor.  I  will  tell  you  the 
truth :  it  did  not  seem  to  me  that  you  were  giving 
me  any;  I  thought  you  were  thinking  of  someone 
else." 

"Of  someone  else!  I  was  thinking  of  nobody. 
I  assure  you  it  is  not  my  habit  to  talk  to  one  per- 
son and  suit  my  remarks  to  some  third  person. 
M.  de  Saulmoz,  would  you  mind  telling  me  of  whom 
you  could  imagine  I  was  thinking?" 

He  answered  at  once,  but  with  some  hesitation. 
"I  do  not  think  I  have  the  right  to  tell  you.  I  have 
annoyed  you  already — twice,  it  seems !  You  would 
feel  that  I  had  taken  a  real  liberty  If  I  answered 
your  question  frankly." 

"There  can  be  no  liberty  In  frankly  answering  a 
direct  question.  It  is  so  extraordinary!  You  do 
not  know  even  the  name,  perhaps,  of  a  single  friend 
of  mine.  I  have  very  few.  How  could  you  be 
thinking  of  any  person  as  likely  to  occupy  my 
thoughts." 

"No,  Madame,  I  know  none  of  your  friends,  ex- 


172  THE  TIDEWAY 

cept  the  Misses  Shenstone  and  the  Comtesse  de 
St.  Firmin.  And  I  have  only  heard  the  names  of 
two  others." 

"What  are  their  names?" 
"M.  de  Greoulse  and  M.  Flamboln." 
"As  it  happens  I  do  not  know  M.  de  Greoulse. 
He  is  a  friend  of  my  brother-in-law's  widow.     One 
sees  him  in  society,  but  I  simply  do  not  know  him." 
"There  remains  only  M.  Flamboin." 
"I  certainly  was  not  thinking  of  him  when  I  was 
speaking  to  you.     To  tell  the  truth  he  is  not  a  per- 
son I  think  of  with  much  pleasure.     M.  Flamboin! 
It  is  quite  bad  enough  that  he   should  be   on  the 
point  of  marrying  the  lady  of  whom  I  just  spoke  to 
you;  my  brother-in-law's  widow." 

The  rain  had  come  after  all,  and  the  boisterous 
wind  had  not  dropped;  the  rain  smacked  at  the  win- 
dows, and  there  was  a  moaning  whistle  in  the  win- 
dow-sashes. But  Gaston  did  not  think  the  day  was 
falling  sadly. 

"What,"  he  asked,  as  carelessly  as  he  could,  "is 
the  name  of  the  lady  who  has  so  greatly  honored 
M.    Flamboin?" 

"Her  name?"  Then  Madeleine  de  Valmondois 
felt  herself  flushing.  "Why — the  same  as  my  own. 
She  is  Duchess  de  Valmondois.  My  husband's 
elder  brother  is  Due  de  Somain — there  he  is,  the 
tall,  very  thin  man  with  white  hair  and  pince-nez. 
My  husband's  younger  brother  became  Due  de  Val- 
mondois. He  died  a  year  ago,  scarcely  a  year  ago. 
He  had  been  married  for  nearly  twenty  years.  And 
now  the  Duchess  is  making  a  new  departure.  After 
all,  M.  Flamboin  will  not  be  my  brother-in-law.  He 
is  not  even  marrying  my  sister-in-law.  Perhaps  you 
think  it  out  of  place  in  an  American,  a  Republican, 
to  object  to  a  man  because  he  is  not  noble;  it  isn't 
that.    But  he  IS  ignoble.    He  is  brutally  rich;  he  can 


./  FRANCO-AMERICAN  ENCOUNTER    173 

bring  riches  out  of  anything — out  of  a  drain,  out  of 
a  puddle.  One  can  be  vulgar  without  being  rich. 
He  would  be  vulgar  if  he  had  to  sweep  a  crossing." 

"Let  us  hope,"  said  Gaston,  laughing,  "that  he 
will  not  be  reduced  to  sweeping  one  in  the  Rue 
Bayard  in  front  of  the  Hotel  Valmondois." 

"The  Hotel  Valmondois  is  not  in  the  Rue  Bay- 
ard, it  is  in  the  Place  Franqois  ler;  you  passed  it, 
perhaps  coming  here,  Madame  de  St.  Firmin  is 
going — I  must  say  a  demahi  to  her;  I  lunch  there 
to-morrow." 

"So  do  I.     She  was  very  kind  as  to  ask  me." 

He  had  a  much  livelier  sense  of  her  kindness  now 
than  when  the  invitation  had  been  given.  He  also 
thought  with  extreme  benevolence  of  the  Misses 
Shenstone.  What  tact  they  had!  M.  Flamboin  he 
had  the  highest  authority  for  still  thinking  intoler- 
able, but  he  had  no  animosity  towards  him,  and 
had  no  malevolent  desire  to  see  him  sweeping  a 
crossing.  He  certainly  would  not  be  a  brother-in- 
law.  M.  de  Saulmoz  escorted  the  Comtesse  de  St. 
Firmin  to  her  carriage;  as  she  leant  on  his  arm 
down  the  stairs  she  said: 

"I  hope  you  will  follow  your  father's  lead,  and 
be  an  Ambassador.  If  I  were  a  man  I  should  have 
been  an  Ambassador." 

"Then  why  were  you  not  an  Ambassadress?" 

"I  can't  think.  Unless  no  Ambassador  asked  me. 
As  a  matter  of  fact  the  Ambassadress  is  quite  as 
important  as  the  Ambassador.  I  advise  you  to  re- 
member that." 

"Yes,  I  promise." 

"She  has  to  be  beautiful,  and  clever,  and  distin- 
guished, and  dignified,  and  of  high  reputation.  And 
if  she  is  also  rich  it  is  no  great  disadvantage." 

"There  could  be  no  difficulty  in  finding  such  a 
lady!" 


174  THE  TIDEWAY 

"That  depends  who  seeks.  Some  men  never  can 
find  anything." 

"And  some  can't  get  what  they  want  when  they 
have  found  it," 

"Not  if  they  are  betes." 

Gaston  had  some  just  misgivings  that  he  had  al- 
ready been  bete.  Did  Madame  de  Valmondois 
guess  that  he  had  thought  her  capable  of  marrying 
M.  Flamboin?" 

"You'll  think  of  me,"  he  said  laughing,  as  he  put 
his  mother's  old  friend  into  her  carriage,  "if  you 
happen  to  meet  such  an  Ambassadress  as  you  de- 
scribe?" 

"Perhaps.  A  demain.  You  are  coming  to  lunch- 
eon to-morrow?" 

"Of  course.     Do  you  think  I  should  forget?" 

He  thought  that,  as  it  was  still  raining,  the  old 
lady  might  as  well  have  offered  him  a  lift  in  her 
big  carriage.     But  she  did  nothing  of  the  kind. 

"My  dear,"  she  cried,  "I  have  left  my  handker- 
chief on  that  sofa.  You  might  bring  it  with  you 
to-morrow.     Tell  the  man  'Home,'  please." 

She  knew  quite  well  that  he  had  not  intended  to 
go  back  to  the  salon.  Old  intirgante!  But  the 
handkerchief  really  was  on  the  sofa — under  a 
cushion. 

"Not,  however,  by  such  easy  tricks,"  thought 
Gaston,  "is  my  business  to  be  done.  It  will  take 
long,  and  it  will  be  difficult." 

VI 

Next  day  at  Madame  de  St.  Firmin's,  Gaston 
had  something  to  say  to  her,  and  he  said  it  aloud  at 
luncheon,  where  only  two  other  guests  were  seated 
at  the  large  round  table — Madame  de  Valmondois 
and  Miss  Essie  Shenstone." 

"Madame,"  said  he,  turning  to  their  hostess,  "you 
have  ordered  me  to  be  an  Ambassador:   I  hope  you 


A  FRANCO-AMERICAN  ENCOUNTER     175 

will  not  be  angry  if  I  cannot  obey  you  quite  in- 
stantly." 

"One  sometimes  has  to  begin  by  becoming  an 
attache,"  she  admitted. 

"I  had  thought  of  that.  But  I  cannot  even  begin 
in  that  way  for  the  moment.  Events  have  moved 
very  rapidly,  more  rapidly  than!  the  newspapers 
have  as  yet  found  out.  The  Quai  d'Orsay  is  nearly 
certain  that  there  will  be  war.  Austria  is  forcing 
war  on  Serbia,  and  it  is  pretty  sure  who  is  pushing 
her  from  behind.  We  do  not  want  war,  England 
has  no  army  and  hates  the  idea  of  it.  But  Russia 
will  not  allow  Serbia  to  be  ecrasee,  and  says  so  vig- 
orously. The  English  Foreign  Office  is  exhausting 
itself  In  trying  to  keep  the  peace,  but  Austria  will 
not  listen.  England  has  lost  the  habit  as  well  as 
the  gout  of  mixing  herself  in  continental  quarrels. 
We  know  who  has  always  meant  to  force  tis  to  fight. 
And  If  Austria  makes  war  against  Russia  we  are 
bound  to  range  ourselves  on  Russia's  side.  Eng- 
land ought  to  be  bound  to  range  herself  with  us;  as 
to  that  we  shall  see.  But  If  France  goes  to  war — 
well,  I  am  afraid,  Madame,  that  I  cannot  become 
an  attache  till  it  Is  over." 

The  three  ladies  who  heard  him  had  the  impres- 
sion, whether  rightly  or  wrongly,  that  he  had  more 
definite  authority  for  his  remarks  than  he  hinted, 
that  probably  he  knew  more  than  he  said. 

At  least  one  important  personage  at  the  Quai 
d'Orsay  was  his  father's  old  and  intimate  friend. 
The  old  Comtesse  jumped  to  the  conclusion,  though 
she  did  not  proclaim  it,  that  he  had  actually  come 
from  the  Ministry  of  Foreign  Affairs  whither  he 
might  have  gone  really  on  some  business  connected 
with  his  own  entrance  Into  the  diplomatic  service. 

"I  wonder,"  she  said,  shaking  her  old  head,  "if 


176  THE  TIDEWAY 

we  are  read^^     We  thought  we  were  in  the  Soixante 
Dix." 

"Germany  Is  anyway,"  said  Gaston.  "That  is  the 
best  of  being  a  man  of  one  idea.  That  whole  na- 
tion is  an  army.  And  armies  do  not  exist  for  the 
sake  of  shaking  hands  with  foreigners  who  are  also 
neighbors." 

"And  Germany  is  not  a  Republic,"  said  his 
hostess  dismally.  She  herself  was  vehemently  mon- 
archist. 

"Come,  Madame,"  laughed  Gaston.  "France 
won  a  few  battles  when  she  was  a  Republic.  The 
Republic  was  the  mother  of  Napoleon." 

"Hardly.  One  isn't  born  before  one's  mother, 
and  he  was  born  before  her." 

They  all  laughed. 

"If  Napoleon  had  been  the  son  of  the  First  Re- 
public," the  old  lady  chuckled,  "he  would  have  been 
a  matricide :  for  he  strangled  her  without  much  com- 
punction." 

"In  our  Republic,"  said  Miss  Shenstone,  "we 
take  care  to  have  no  Napoleons  to  play  such  pranks 
with  their  mother." 

"So  I've  heard,  my  dear.     So  do  we  here  now." 

After  this  little  passage  of  arms,  they  fell  to 
graver  talk. 

Madame  de  Valmondols  had  always  thought  Gas- 
ton grave;  he  certainly  was  no  longer  melancholy, 
and  if  he  was  still  grave  it  struck  her  as  being  a 
cheerful  gravity.  He  had  found,  she  thought,  a 
purpose;  and  it  made  him  earnest  but  contented. 
She  did  not  know  that  he  had  found  two :  one  she 
herself  had  provided  last  night;  the  other  the  day's 
news  had  given  him. 

"You  never  thought  of  the  army-  as  a  profes- 
sion?" asked  Gaston's  hostess. 

"Oh,  no!     If  there  is  war  I  must  fight  as  a  sim- 


A  FRANCO-AMERICAN  ENCOUNTER     177 

pie  soldier.  When  the  war  is  over  I  shall  remem- 
ber your  commands." 

They  all  thought,  "if  you  are  alive."  And  he  did 
not  forget  that  proviso,  but  it  would  have  been  very 
unlike  him  to  express  it.  His  disposition  was  rather 
courageous  than  sanguine,  and  he  was  not  at  all 
the  sort  of  man  who  takes  it  for  granted  that  mis- 
haps are  for  other  people  only.  He  knew  quite 
well  that  all  he  might  have  to  do  in  life  might  be 
finished  in  a  few  weeks :  but  he  saw  no  use  in  staring 
at  the  chance,  and  most  assuredly  would  not  talk 
of  it. 

He  did  not  much  like  the  idea  of  war,  because 
he  could  not  guess  how  France  would  fare  in  it. 
Had  he  been  a  soldier  by  profession  it  might  have 
been  different.  Still  he  had  been  a  soldier  very 
lately,  and  if  there  was  war  he  felt  that  nothing 
could  be  more  immensely  interesting  and  absorbing 
than  taking  his  single  share  in  it. 

"Eh,  my  dears,"  said  the  old  lady,  "if  you  re- 
member 1870!  I  had  hoped  to  see  nothing  like  it 
again.  This  can't  be  as  bad  as  that.  It  is  terrible 
when  one  is  old  to  think  of  one's  country's  scars  torn 
open  to  bleed  afresh.  You  young  men  turn  to  your 
bright  swords,  we  old  women  can  turn  only  to  our 
rusty  prayers." 

Gaston  glanced  quickly  and  quite  involuntarily 
at  Madeleine:  were  hei'  prayers  rusty?  He  thought 
not.  Could  he  trust  in  having  a  share  in  them? 
Her  eyes  met  his,  and  I  think  he  read  a  promise 
in  them. 


VII 

This  is  not  a  war  story.     That  the  war  came  and 
has  not  gone  a  whole  agonized  world  knows.     Its 


178  THE  TIDEWAY 

taste  is  in  our  meat  and  drink:  it  is  in  all  we  read, 
though  we  choose  our  books  never  so  carefully  from 
old  shelves  laden  before  it  came:  it  walks  with  us, 
though  we  pace  the  unvexed  fields  of  neutral  lands; 
the  lark's  song  at  heaven's  gate  or  near  it  dins  it 
in  our  ear;  its  cloud  is  on  the  most  aloof  mountain 
top;  and  the  artillery  of  great  oceans  echoes  it  in 
their  booming  caverns. 

To  an  old  man  of  peace  and  of  the  pen  who  has 
stood  near-hand  to  it  the  anguish  of  writing  of  it 
is  too  raw  and  terrible.     He  will  not. 

If  he  has  not  wholly  failed  in  this  swift  picture, 
to  sketch  the  outline  of  a  young  man's  portrait,  the 
reader  will  not  need  his  asseveration  that  Gaston  de 
Saulmoz  did  not  fall  short.  What  he  did  Gaston 
never  told  nor  will  this  writer.  Where  unnumbered 
heroes  did  their  best  Gaston  did  as  they.  Their 
comrades  know  their  names,  history  may  never 
know  them.  History  likes  to  sum  up  and  general- 
ize; slow  as  she  is  and  fumbling  enough  in  her  gait^- 
she  is  hasty  and  will  scarcely  encumber  herself  with 
endless  rolls  of  names  that  are  not  to  recur  in  her 
page.  To  have  laid  one's  life  down,  or  stood  with 
it  in  one's  fist  at  gaze  with  Death  and  ready  to 
yield  it  up  if  need  be — that  is  not  enough  for  his- 
tory: her  business  is  not  with  the  led  who  fall,  but 
with  the  leader  who  conquers. 

Yet  I  think  the  fallen  carry  smilingly  their  com- 
rades' names  before  another  Court  of  Honor  as 
patient  because  it  is  Eternal,  as  history  is  hurried 
and  transient. 

The  round  world  does  not  ring  with  Gaston  de 
Saulmoz's  name,  but  some  have  reported  his  deeds 
in  a  book  that  shall  outlive  history,  and  many  of  his 
comrades  still  alive  will  remember  them  always. 
Fame  may  be  too  busy  for  him :  she  cannot  be  every- 
where, and  it  is  somewhat  her  fashion  to  give  most 


A  FRANCO-AMERICAN  ENCOUNTER    179 

easily  to  them  who  are  rich  already.  And  Gaston 
did  another  thing  she  seldom  likes :  he  fell  out  of 
the  ranks — twice ;  not  willingly  but  by  reason  of 
being  cut  down  in  them. 

His  first  wound  came  in  the  first  few  months  of 
the  war:  and  it  was  serious  enough.  For  three 
months  he  was  in  hospital.  Then  he  was  able  to 
go  back,  and  fought  for  half  another  year.  The 
second  wound  left  him  with  only  one  arm. 

But  what  has  been  so  briefly  told  took  a  long 
time  in  action  and  it  had  for  him  much  result. 

He  did  not  actually  leave  Paris  till  about  three 
weeks  after  his  first  meeting  with  Madame  de  Val- 
mondois  though  he  had  resumed  his  private  soldier's 
uniform  six  or  seven  days  earlier.  During  those 
three  weeks  they  had  met  many  times,  at  Madame 
de  St.  Firmin's  house,  at  the  Miss  Shenstones'  and 
at  Madame  de  Valmondois's  own.  At  least  five  of 
those  six  ladies  had  felt  sure  that  he  would  not  go 
away  without  declaring  himself.  What  the  sixth  ex- 
pected it  would  be  more  difficult  to  guess,  and  more 
indiscreet  to  inquire.  From  the  day  of  his  first  seeing 
Madame  de  Valmondois  in  their  garden  the  four 
kind  American  ladies  had  been  aware  that  the  young 
man  had  been  seriously  attracted  by  the  beautiful 
Duchess;  and  they  were  shrewd  judges  of  charac- 
ter; he  was  not,  they  were  convinced,  the  sort  of 
person  who  fancies  himself  In  love  once  or  twice 
a  year.  They  were  discreet  as  well  as  observant 
and  dropped  no  hint  elsewhere  or  to  Gaston  him- 
self, still  less  to  the  Duchess,  though  they  had  known 
her  much  longer  and  knew  her  more  intimately. 
Nevertheless  they  perceived  that  what  they  had  seen 
begin  had  not  died  away.  The  first  attraction  had 
steadily  though  rapidly  deepened. 

Under  normal  circumstances  they  could  imagine 
that    M.    de   Saulmoz   would   not   be   a   very  hasty 


i8o  THE   TIDEWAY 

wooer.  But  the  existing  state  of  affairs  was  not 
normal:  events  of  all  sorts  were  moving  quickly 
elsewhere,  and  they  thought  his  might  move  rap- 
idly too.  That  he  and  the  young  Duchess  were 
constantly  meeting  they  knew ;  surely  he  would  not 
go  away  without  saying  something  to  the  purpose. 

Madame  de  St.  Firmin  had  somewhat  outgrown 
discretion,  and  almost  boasted  of  it.  She  thought 
herself  too  old  to  call  delay  by  the  demure  name 
of  patience. 

She  was  not  exactly  in  awe  of  Gaston,  but,  though 
she  would  venture  so  far  as  to  wrap  up  dexterous 
hints  in  the  folds  of  indifferent  observations,  she 
was  not  quite  hardy  enough  with  him  to  do  more 
when  he  chose  to  appear  wholly  obtuse. 

"You  are  made  for  an  Ambassador,"  she  told 
him,  "you  are  all  prudence  and  caution.  Events 
must  mold  themselves :  to  grab  at  them  and  twist 
them  in  your  fingers  to  your  own  shape  you  would 
think  mere  rashness." 

He  only  laughed  and  said  that  his  father  was 
fond  of  quoting  a  great  English  writer  who  de- 
clared that  for  tangling  a  skein  there  was  nothing 
like  violent  tugging  at  one  particular  thread. 

With  Madeleine  de  Valmondois  she  was  frankly 
indiscreet. 

"To-morrow  he  goes,"  she  said,  "I  wish  I  knew 
If  he  had  done  his  duty." 

"You  may  be  sure  he  will  do  it." 

"Don't  be  a  hypocrite.  You  know  what  I  mean 
very  well.  His  duty  will  be  to  do  things.  Here  it 
is  to  have  said  something." 

"He  is  not  talkative.  But  he  says  more  to  you 
than  to  anyone  else." 

"To  me?  There  Is  nothing  for  him  to  say  to  me. 
You  are  intolerable!     Has  he  been  a  fool?" 

"He  is  not  in  the  least  a  fool." 


A  FRANCO-AMERICAN  ENCOUNTER     i8i 

"He  would  be  if  he  went  away  without  saying 
something  to  you.     There!" 

"On  the  contrary,  he  would  be  wise." 
"Wisdom  consists  in  knowing  what  one  wants." 
"And  also  in  not  spoiling  one's  chance  of  getting 


it." 


*'ro«  know  at  all  events  what  he  wants." 
"My  dear  old  friend,  if  he  tells  you  his  secrets 
(which  I  doubt)  he  does  not  tell  them  to  me.  And 
therein  I  say  he  is  wise.  If  you  try  to  force  me 
to  guess  all  them,  I  refuse.  Would  you  mind  talk- 
ing of  something  else?" 

VIII 

They  neither  of  them  saw  him  again  for  three 
months.  To  the  old  Comtesse  he  wrote  several 
times,  to  the  Miss  Shenstones  about  as  often:  once 
he  wrote  to  Madame  de  Valmondois,  as  she  care- 
fully told  Madame  de  St.  Firmin.  It  appeared  that 
he  had  asked  her  to  lend  him  a  certain  book,  and 
in  returning  it  he  had  written  a  letter. 

"A  nice  letter?"  demanded  the  old  lady. 

"No  doubt  it  is  a  nice  letter.  I  will  give  it  to 
you  to  read." 

"I  have  not  the  slightest  desire  to  see  it  if  you 
are  willing  to  show  it  to  me." 

"I  am  perfectly  willing." 

"Then  keep  it  to  yourself!" 

At  the  end  of  three  months  all  the  ladies  of  whom 
we  have  spoken  as  his  friends  saw  him.  For  he 
was  brought,  wounded,  to  a  hospital  at  Neuilly. 
Among  the  voluntary  nurses,  infirniieres,  was 
Madame  de  Valmondois  herself:  and  she  promptly 
reported  his  arrival  to  Madame  de  St.  Firmin  and 
to  the  Misses  Shenstone. 

"You  are  nursing  him?"  asked  the  former  with 
ill-concealed  triumph. 


1 82  THE  TIDEWAY 

"No.  He  is  not  in  my  ward.  There  arc  twenty 
wards." 

The  Comtesse  was  quite  clearly  of  opinion  that 
they  had  put  him  in  the  wrong  ward.  But  the 
Duchess  was  busy  and  would  not  stay  to  talk. 

When  Madame  de  St.  Firmin  went  to  see  him 
she  allowed  herself  to  be  taken  over  the  hospital 
by  the  Infirmiere  Chef  who  was  her  own  niece. 

"I  think,"  said  the  old  plotter,  when  she  had 
seen  it  all,  "that  you  have  put  my  young  friend  in 
the  least  cheerful  of  all  your  wards.  Eighteen  and 
twelve  are  the  best — ^bright  and  pleasant.  Thir- 
teen is  dismal,  besides  It's  an  unlucky  number.  If 
he  doesn't  get  well  it  will  be  your  fault !" 

The  Infirmiere  Chef  laughed  and  said: 

"There  is  not  a  spare  bed  in  Eighteen.  They 
are  all  full"  (the  Comtesse  had  carefully  noted  the 
circumstance),  "but  they  have  two  empty  beds  in 
Twelve,  and  it  is  opposite  Thirteen.  I  did  not  know 
M.  de  Saulmoz  was  superstitious !  But  it  wouldn't 
be  difficult  to  move  him." 

"Oh,  he  isn't  superstitious.  /  am:  so  is  his 
mother."  (Oh!  Madame  de  St.  Firmin!  where  do 
you  suppose  you  will  go  to?)  "I  certainly  shall  not 
tell  her  he  is  in  Thirteen." 

"If  you  wait  till  to-morrow  perhaps  you  can  write 
that  he  is  in  Twelve." 

It  was  certainly  a  weakness  of  this  old  lady  to  try 
and  prevent  Providence  from  being  overworked. 

Thus  it  came  about  that  for  nearly  three  months 
Gaston  was  one  of  Madame  de  Valmondois's  pa- 
tients, and  she  neglected  none  of  them.  We  are 
not  bound  to  suppose  that  she  exclusively  neglected 
him.  Still,  there  were  many  patients,  and  she  was 
was  far  from  being  the  only  infirmiere  in  the  ward. 
Perhaps  Madame  de  St.  Firmin  exaggerated  the  Im- 
portance of  her  success;  more  especially  since  it  is 


A  FRANCO-AMERICAN  ENCOUNTER     183 

true  that  "In  vain  Is  the  net  set  in  the  sight  of 
any  bird,"  and  Madeleine  had  seen  the  net  very 
promptly,  though  the  Infinniere  Chef  had  sus- 
pected nothing.  Gaston  knew  nothing  about  it, 
had  he  known  it  is  probable  he  would  have  been  less 
irritated  than  was  Madame  de  Valmondois. 

When  he  went  back  to  the  front  Madame  de  St. 
Firmin  was  disgusted.  "I  thought,"  she  avowed 
unpatriotically,  "that  the  only  good  of  being  nearly 
killed  was  that  you  wouldn't  have  to  go  and  be 
killed  again.  You've  got  the  Croix  de  Guerre  and 
the  Medaille  Mllitaire,  you  ought  to  give  the  other 
young  men  a  chance." 

She  would  have  been  still  more  annoyed  had  she 
known  how  doggedly  Gaston  had  been  moving 
heaven  and  earth  to  get  sent  back  to  the  front  at 
once.  If  he  had  not  done  this  he  would  perhaps  not 
have  gone  back  for  at  least  another  three  months. 

Madame  de  Valmondois  did  know,  and  was  not 
offended.  Had  he  been  her  husband  she  would  have 
wished  him  to  go  if  he  should  not  be  simply  unable 
to  go.  And  he  was  not  even  her  betrothed.  She 
had  long  "known  what  he  wanted" :  and  she  had 
wholly  approved  of  his  not  asking  for  it.  Had  he 
asked  before  he  first  went  to  the  war  she  would 
have  said  "No" :  that  he  had  kept  silence  was,  she 
was  sure,  because  he  had  not  felt  that  he  had  any 
right  to  expect  "Yes."  She  could  not  love  merely 
because  she  was  loved,  nor  mistake  a  respectful  af- 
fection for  love.  That  her  friendship  amounted 
almost  to  affection  she  confessed,  and  she  did  more 
than  almost  respect  him. 

But  when  he  went  away  to  fight  once  more  she 
would  not  have  said  "No"  had  he  asked.  Even 
then  he  did  not  ask.  Though  they  had  been  friends 
for  over  half  a  year,  he  did  not  ask  if  she  would 
be  more.     And  therefore  he  did  not  tell  her  in  any 


1 84  THE   TIDEWAY 

speech,  or  in  many  speeches,  that  he  loved  her  bet- 
ter than  all  the  world.  Whether  she  fully  under- 
stood his  silence  this  time  I  am  not  prepared  to  say. 

She  was  quite  certain  that  he  had  not  changed: 
he  had  grown,  but  though  his  character  had  devel- 
oped, and  was  finer,  richer,  more  ripe,  she  knew 
very  well  that  his  heart,  which  had  also  deepened, 
was  not  changed. 

Still  he  left  her  that  second  time,  also  without 
asking  anything  of  her,  without  offering  her  any- 
thing— for  indeed  he  could  not  have  offered  that 
thing  without  asking  it  in  return.  That,  of  course, 
she  understood:  and  no  doubt  she  understood  too 
that  he  must  be  aware  that  if  he  now  offered  she 
would  give.  Anyway  he  had  gone,  and  he  had  not 
even  said  that  he  would  write  to  her.  To  the  Miss 
Shenstones  he  did  write,  and  to  the  old  Comtesse : 
and  in  writing  to  them  he  always  asked  "her  news" 
and  sent  his  hommages  to  her.  But  to  herself  he 
did  not  write  even  once.  He  knew  her  fete  day, 
and  when  the  22nd  July  arrived  a  gerhe  of  exquisite 
flowers  came  to  her  from  a  florist's  with  his  card 
attached  to  it,  but  there  came  no  letter. 

She  took  the  flowers  to  the  Madeleine  and  had  in- 
tended asking  that  they  should  be  added  to  the  im- 
mense number  before  the  statue  of  the  saint,  but 
changed  her  mind  and  asked  that  they  should  be 
placed  before  that  of  the  Blessed  Jeanne  d'  Arc. 
She  prayed  a  long  time  after  the  man  had  gone 
away  who  had  done  her  bidding.  But  the  card  was 
not  on  the  flowers :  that  she  kept. 

"How  silent  he  is,"  she  thought.  "And  I  never 
liked  talkative  men.     But  he  is  silent." 

On  the  card  was  written  only  her  own  name, 
above  his  printed  name  and  "Souvenir  respectueux." 

Madame  de  St.  Firmin  no  longer  teased  her: 
she  was  angry  with  Gaston.     Had  he  behaved  him- 


A  FRANCO-AMERICAN  ENCOUNTER    185 

self  as  he  ought  she  felt  sure  Madeleine  would  have 
told  her.  She  was  savage  with  Gaston,  but  she  was 
not  indiscreet  enough  to  put  her  crossness  into  writ- 
ing. She  kept  all  her  indiscretion  for  word  of 
mouth.  But  she  left  his  letters,  as  they  came,  a 
long  while  unanswered. 

IX 

Then  he  came  back.  Not,  this  time,  to  the 
hospital  at  Neuilly,  but  to  one  at  Fontainebleau. 
There  was  no  question  of  Madame  de  Valmondois 
nursing  him  now.  At  the  moment  she  was  not  nurs- 
ing at  all :  she  had  worked  too  hard,  and  been  con- 
stantly a  little  ill,  and  at  last  the  doctors  had  sim- 
ply ordered  her  to  rest.  That  was  only  a  few  days 
before  his  return  from  the  front  in  late  October, 
191 5.  He  was  quite  unaware  that  she  had  tem- 
porarily broken  down. 

It  was  from  Miss  Essie  and  Miss  Sally  Shen- 
stone  that  the  Duchess  heard  of  his  arrival  at  Fon- 
tainebleau. They  had  been  to  see  him  the  day  be- 
fore. They  began  by  saying  how  cheerful  he  was, 
then  they  told  her  that  it  was  the  left  arm  that  had 
been  wounded.  With  singular  carefulness  they 
managed  the  telling,  not  holding  her  in  suspense, 
but  quite  quickly  and  yet  gradually  arriving  at  the 
whole  truth.  The  lower  arm  was  gone ;  it  had  been 
blown  off  just  below  the  elbow.  The  real  danger 
had  been  at  first,  the  danger  that  he  might  bleed 
to  death.  All  that  danger  was  over  before  he  had 
been  sent  down  from  the  front;  now  he  was  doing 
very  well. 

"Madame  de  St.  Firmin,"  said  Miss  Essie,  "will 
be  almost  glad,  for  now  he  can  fight  no  more." 

Of  course,  they  all  three  talked  of  it  for  a  long 
time ;  when  the  two  kind  Americans  got  up  to  go 


1 86  THE  TIDEWAY 

they  said  they  had  promised  Gaston  to  go  and  see 
the  Comtesse  de  St.  Firmin. 

"I  think  Anna  and  Megsie  are  going  to  Fon- 
tainebleau  to-morrow,"  said  Miss  Essie,  "I  sup- 
pose you  would  not  care  to  go  with  them?" 

"No.  But  I  should  like  them  to  tell  him  that  I 
will  come." 

They  knew  that  she  meant  she  would  go  alone. 
I  really  cannot  say  if  they  were  surprised.  Per- 
haps they  hardly  knew  themselves  if  they  were  or 
no.  She  went  on  the  day  following  that  on  which 
Miss  Anna  and  Miss  Megsie  Shenstone  had  been. 

"They  told  me,"  he  said,  "that  you  would  come. 
I  did  not  dare  to  expect  you  so  soon." 

"I  should  have  come  yesterday  only  that  they 
were  coming." 

"They  said  you  had  not  been  well.  But  I  think 
you  have  been  really  ill." 

"I  don't  know.  The  doctors  said  I  was,  or  that 
I  soon  should  be.     I  did  not  feel  ill,  but  tired," 

"And  now  you  come  all  this  way;  that  will  not 
rest  you." 

"It  will.  I  could  not  stay  at  home  and  not  know 
how  you  really  were.  Not  see  with  my  own  eyes. 
That  would  have  tired  me." 

He  was  pale,  for  he  had  lost  much  blood,  and  he 
looked  older.  Nevertheless,  he  did  not  seem  ill. 
After  having  been  so  slow,  it  might  have  struck 
her  as  odd  that  he  should  now  be  so  quick,  for  he 
held  out  his  hand — his  only  one,  and  said:  "I  have 
only  this  one  left;  but  it  is  the  right  one."  And  he 
offered  it  to  her. 

And  without  hesitation  she  took  it. 

"You  know  what  I  mean?"  he  asked,  not  holding 
her  hand  long,  but  meeting  her  eyes  plainly. 

"Yes,  I  know,"  she  answered  as  plainly. 

"I  shall  not  die,"  he  said,  "that  is  why  I  offer  it 


A  FRANCO-AMERICAN  ENCOUNTER     187 

to  you  now.  I  might  have  been  killed.  While 
there  was  that  certainty  I  would  not  hold  out  to  you 
what  might  have  been  a  dead  man's  hand." 

"I  have  always  understood  you,"  she  told  him, 
"from  the  first  day." 

"From  the  first  day  I  loved  you,"  he  said,  "and 
I  cannot  hide  my  wants.  But  I  knew  that  if  I  spoke 
soon  it  would  not  gain  me  what  I  longed  for. 
When  I  went  away  the  second  time  I  knew  better 
what  that  hell  was  like  to  which  I  was  going  back. 
If  I  should  not  come  back  I  would  not  have  you 
bound  to  my  memory." 

"I  should  have  been  bound.  I  should  have  been 
then  in  truth  a  widow." 

He  did  not  explain  further,  for  he  saw  there  was 
no  need.  Simply  he  would  not  have  had  her  be 
known  to  the  world  as  a  woman  widowed  of  her 
betrothed.  Neither  did  she  explain.  Her  coming 
to  him,  thus  by  herself,  to  many  men  would  have 
seemed  strange,  perhaps  unworthy  of  her  and  her 
somewhat  aloof  dignity.     He  knew  her  too  well. 

"I  have  always  understood,"  she  said  again. 
"That  is  why  I  came  to-day.  I  knew  what  you 
would  say.  I  came  on  purpose.  You  had  waited 
long  enough.     So  had  I." 

"Ah,  Madame!  How  long  it  has  been — for  me." 

"For  us  both." 

"Do  you  remember,"  he  asked  presently,  "the 
first  day  that  we  met,  how  we  talked  of  Fontaine- 
bleau?" 

"I  remember  all  we  said." 

"I  never  thought  then  what  was  to  happen  at 
Fontaineleau." 

"Nor  I.  How  could  we,  either  of  us?  But  I 
knew  then  that  something  had  already  happened — 
there  at  Versailles.  I  had  met  someone  who  would 
give  me  a  thing  I  had  never  had.     Unless  I  could 


1 88  THE  TIDEWAY 

give  him  as  much  I  could  not  take  it;  I  cannot.  It 
was  a  long  time  till  I  knew  that  I  could  give  him  as 
much." 

"I  also  have  always  understood." 

Then  her  grave  eyes  changed,  and  there  was  a 
little  dancing  light  of  mischief  in  them. 

"Always?"  she  said.  "When  you  thought  me 
capable  of  marrying  Monsieur  Flamboin?" 

"Ah,"  he  protested  laughing,  "you  begin  on  that 
already?  I  thought  you  would  have  kept  it  for 
our  first  quarrel  to  grind  me  down  with!" 

"Oh,  I  could  not  wait  for  that.  It  might  have 
been  so  long." 

"Very  well.  If  you  grind  me  down  now,  gloat- 
ing over  my  stupidity,  I  can  only  say  that  you  are 
pert/' 

"I  can  be  ever  so  pert.  You  think  you  know 
exactly  what  I  am  like.  But  I  am  not  so  solemn  as 
you  imagine.  At  first  I  used  to  wonder  if  you  were 
not  too  grave  for  me.  Our  kind  friends  at  Ver- 
sailles, Miss  Anna  and  Miss  Essie,  Miss  Megsie 
and  Miss  Sally,  they  know  I  can  be  pert,  and  I  have 
often  made  them  laugh.  Gaston,  I  do  not  believe 
I  ever  made  you  laugh." 

"Well,  begin  now.  You  could  never  find  it  so 
easy.  To-day  I  could  laugh  at  anything.  You  need 
not  be  extremely  witty." 

"Strange  to  say  I  can't  think  of  anything  in  the 
least  amusing.  But  it  will  be  rather  amusing  tell- 
ing Madame  de  St.  Firmin.  Latterly  I've  been 
afraid  of  going  near  her.     She  has  been  savage." 

"But  with  me;  I  could  see  that." 

"With  me  also.  She  evidently  thought  it  was  my 
fault  you  had  not  done  your  duty." 

"All  the  same  I  like  Madame  de  St.  Firmin.  It 
was  a  great  thing  to  perceive  that  what  I  wanted  to 
do  that  she  considered  to  be  my  duty." 


A  FRANCO-AMERICAN  ENCOUNTER    189 

"Of  course,  one  likes  her.  Gaston,  do  your 
father  and  mother  know  anything  about  me?" 

"I  expect  they  both  know  all  'about  you,'  as  you 
call  it.  I  told  my  mother,  and  no  doubt  she  has 
told  my  father.  Do  you  know  what  those  dear 
Americans  are  going  to  do?  They  say  they  shall 
come  and  stay  at  Fontainebleau — Miss  Essie  says 
Piou-piou  requires  change  of  air." 

"So  do  I." 

"You  will  come  and  stay  with  them!" 

"If  you  can  induce  them  to  ask  me." 

"No  doubt  my  mother  will  come  here.  She  is 
in  England.    Then  you  can  stay  with  her." 

"Gaston,  I  shall  return  to  Paris  to-night.  And 
I  shall  go  and  satisfy  Madame  de  St.  Firmin  about 
something.  Before  she  saw  you  she  tormented  me 
to  know  if  you  were  handsome,  and  I  really  could 
not  tell  her.  I  shall  now  report  that  you  are 
really " 

"What?" 

"Not  so  bad  considering." 

"There,"  he  said,  "I  promised  I  should  laugh, 
even  if  you  were  not  very  witty.  You  see,  I  keep 
my  word.     Is  this  a  pretty  ring?" 

And  from  under  the  pillow  he  drew  forth  a  lit- 
tle twist  of  white  paper,  and  unfolded  from  it  a 
half-circlet  of  large  emeralds. 

"Give  me  your  hand,"  he  demanded,  and  he  set 
the  ring  upon  her  finger. 

"Have  you,"  she  asked,  laughing,  "a  jeweller 
under  your  pillow?" 

"Oh  no.  I  bought  it  in  Paris  before  I  went  away 
the  second  time.  It  was  the  only  thing  of  yours  I 
had,  so  I  wore  it  round  my  neck  on  a  chain." 

"But  it  would  not  have  been  mine  if  I  had  not 
taken  your  hand  just  now." 

"No.     But  I  always  understood.     There  is  just 


I90  THE  TIDEWAY 

one  word  I  want  to  say,  I  have  never  said  it  to 
myself.  You  see  how  confident  I  have  been;  but 
always  respectful.  In  my  thoughts  I  never  called 
you  anything  but  'Madame.'  Now  I  want  to  say 
•Madeleine'," 


FOR  SURMISE 


"Jeanne,"  said  Madame  de  Beaucaire,  "1  want 
J  you  to  come  indoors,  there  are  some  visitors. 
A  lady  and  her  daughter — English,  with  letters  of 
introduction.  And  I  find  Madame  enough;  you 
must  come  and  help  mc  with  Mademoiselle." 

Jeanne  smiled  and  got  up  at  once.  The  two 
ladies  turned  towards  the  house. 

"I  have  an  idea,"  said  the  girl,  "from  your  way 
of  speaking,  that  I  shall  find  mademoiselle  more 
than  enough." 

"It  is  possible.  But  I  did  not  intend  to  give  you 
that  impression.  You  know  I  am  nervous;  and 
strangers  made  me  more  so — strangers  who  drop 
out  of  the  clouds!  No,  there  are  no  clouds,"  with 
a  little  laugh  as  Jeanne  lifted  her  pretty  head  to- 
ward the  sky,  "when  I  am  nervous  I  imagine  my- 
self more  deaf  than  I  really  am " 

"You  are  in  reality  scarcely  deaf  at  all." 

"Well,  I  can  always  hear  you.    You  do  not  yell." 

"Do  these  English  ladies  yell?" 

"No.  Oh,  no!  But  they  talk  in  duet — at  least 
the  daughter  does." 

"She  must  be  clever." 

"I  mean  that  while  her  mother  is  speaking  she 
chips  in." 

"That  is  not  very  well-bred." 

"Oh,  they  are  not  ill-bred.  But  Madame  does 
not  talk  French  easily;  correctly,  but  not  fluently — 
perhaps  she  has  not  been  in  France  much  recently, 
and  has  lost  the  facility — then  her  daughter  seems 
to  want  to  hurry  things  up  and  puts  in." 

191 


192  THE  TIDEWAY 

"I  call  that  being  mal  elevee." 

"We  should  think  so.  But  the  English — autre 
pays  aiitres  moeurs,  you  know." 

''And  what  are  they  doing  all  this  time?  You 
left  them  to  interrupt  themselves  at  their  leisure?" 

"Oh,  no!  The  young  lady  said  she  was  dirty 
and  would  like  to  wash  her  hands — it  is  very  dusty, 
and  they  came  from  Rocheberg  in  an  open  motor. 
So  I  rang  for  Marie  and  she  has  taken  them  up- 
stairs. Madame  was  certainly  covered  with 
dust." 

"Mademoiselle  also,  I  suppose." 

"No.  She  did  not  seem  dusty.  Perhaps  It  Is 
her  style  of  dress  that  does  not  show  it. 

"She  IS  clever,  evidently,"  said  Jeanne,  with  a 
little  laugh.  "It  is  certainly  clever  to  avoid  all  the 
dust  that  covers  your  companion  in  the  same 
motor." 

They  had  now  reached  the  chateau,  and  entered 
the  drawing-room,  a  large,  rather  gaunt  room  that 
seemed  almost  dark  after  the  sunlight  outside. 
There  were  fine  pictures  on  the  walls,  and  the  por- 
traits at  once  gave  the  impression  that  the  family 
at  home  here  must  be  one  of  consequence.  The 
furniture  was  all  of  one  period — Louis  XVI — and 
was  of  an  excellent  taste.  There  were  no  nick- 
nacks,  and  not  many  flowers. 

"They  haven't  come  down  yet,"  observed  Jeanne. 
"Perhaps  Mademoiselle  is  having  a  bath.  English 
people  do  it  all  day  long,  don't  they?" 

"Jeanne!     Tsh !  here  they  come." 

A  footman  threw  open  one  leaf  of  the  big  double 
doors  leading  to  the  hall,  and  stood  aside.  Two 
ladies  entered.  Both  were  tall,  the  elder  was  also 
lean,  but  her  daughter  was  only  slim.  She  had, 
indeed,  a  very  pretty  figure,  but  her  mother  walked 
better :  the  girl  seemed  to  want  to  run. 


FOR  SURMISE  193 

"Madame,"  said  her  hostess,  presenting  Jeanne, 
"this  is  my  niece,  Mademoiselle  de  St.  Gatien." 

The  English  lady  bowed — she  was  really  not  yet 
near  enough  to  shake  hands:  Mademoiselle  de  St. 
Gatien  made  a  curtsey.  Madame  de  Beaucaire 
then  introduced  the  two  girls.  By  this  time  they 
were  close  together  and  Miss  Hexham  held  out  her 
hand.  It  was  a  pretty  hand,  very  well  shaped,  but 
rather  sunburnt. 

"She  is  clever,"  thought  Jeanne,  as  they  shook 
hands,  "and  certainly  pretty:  more  than  pretty. 
And  my  aunt  was  right,  she  is  not  ill-bred." 

The  English  girl  had  very  dark  blue  eyes,  with 
long  lashes,  they  and  her  abundant  hair  were  nearly 
black.  Her  nose  was  particularly  well-shaped,  and 
Jeanne  had  had  an  idea  that  English  noses  were  apt 
to  be  thick;  it  was  an  aristocratic  nose,  but  it  had  a 
little  tilt  at  the  end  that  gave  it  a  slightly  impertinent 
expression.  The  mouth,  not  very  small,  was  also 
well  formed  and  had  an  air  of  distinction,  that  was 
not  spoiled  by  a  tiny  curl  of  the  excellent  shaped 
lips,  though  that  little  curl  carried  out  the  imperti- 
nence of  the  nose. 

Lady  Hexham  was  not  in  the  least  like  her.  She 
had  never  been  pretty,  but  as  an  elderly  woman  was 
still  handsome.  She  was  frankly  badly  dressed, 
but  had  she  been  in  rags  no  one  could  have  mis- 
taken her  for  anything  but  a  lady,  and  a  lady  of 
position  too. 

"We  did  not  know,"  she  was  saying,  "that  your 
chateau  was  anywhere  near  Rocheberg:  and  I  had 
meant  to  have  written  first  and  sent  on  our  letter 
of  introduction." 

"It  was  very  natural,"  said  Madame  de  Beau- 
caire, "for  though  Rocheberg  is  nearer,  our  post- 
town  is  Saint  Blaise  des  Ours,  and  we  are  not  even 
in  the  same  Department  as  Rocheberg." 


194  THE  TIDEWAY 

"No.  And  then  we  thought  that  you  would  allow 
us  to  bring  our  letter  ourselves.  Had  we  posted 
it  we  should  not  have  known  for  a  couple  of  days 
if  you  had  received  it — and  you  might  have  been 
away." 

Miss  Hexham  looked  a  little  bored  by  these 
lengthy  apologies  and  explanations,  but  she  did  not 
interrupt.  Perhaps  she  could  not  very  easily,  as 
Jeanne  was  talking  to  her. 

"We  are  going  on  to  St.  Blaise,"  Lady  Hexham 
now  explained,  "we  have  ordered  rooms  there  and 
dinner.  I  hope  my  slow  French  does  not  bore  you 
very  much.  Of  late  years  we  have  spent  much  time 
in  Italy,  and  now  I  find  that  when  I  open  my  mouth 
Italian  comes  into  it  instead  of  French." 

"My  mother  is  too  conscientious,"  her  daughter 
declared,  "she  really  talks  French  much  better  than 
I  do,  but  she  waits  to  choose  the  most  correct  ex- 
pressions. I  go  straight  across  country  heedless  of 
all  obstacles.  If  I  make  mistakes  tant  pis  pour  mes 
auditeurs.     I  don't  mind  in  the  least." 

She  did  not  even  now  actually  interrupt  her 
mother,  as  her  remark  was  ostensibly  addressed  to 
Jeanne,  but  her  tone  was  not  subdued,  and  Lady 
Hexham  evidently  paused  to  let  her  daughter's  lit- 
tle speech  be  heard. 

All  this  Jeanne  confessed  was  not  bad  manners, 
though  it  was  not  French  manners.  From  her 
aunt's  description  she  had  been  prepared  to  find 
Miss  Hexham  something  less  than  charming,  but 
she  perceived  that  the  girl  was  at  all  events  not  dis- 
agreeable. 

II 

The  English  ladies  had  refused  Madame  de 
Beaucaire's  invitation  to  stay  for  dinner.  But  they 
would  have  tea. 


FOR  SURMISE  195 

"May  we  see  the  garden?"  Miss  Hexham  had 
asked.  "It  looked  fascinating  from  the  window 
upstairs." 

And  when  they  had  gone  out  into  it,  and  the  two 
elder  ladies  were  a  little  in  front,  she  went  on — "I 
saw  you  being  fetched.  I  was  sorry  for  you.  Your 
aunt  was  unable  to  convince  you  that  you  would 
find  us  most  engaging  people.  Description  is  evi- 
dently not  her  forte." 

And  the  young  lady  laughed  demurely.  Jeanne 
laughed  too   and   said: 

"She  did  not  attempt  it.  She  merely  said  you 
were  here." 

"If  she  only  said  that  then  description  is  her 
forte.  For  you  had  quite  made  up  your  mind 
about  us  both  before  seeing  us.  That  was  ob- 
vious. 

"And  what  had  I  decided?"  asked  Mademoiselle 
de  St.  Gatien,  endeavoring  to  acclimatize  herself 
to  this  somewhat  breezy  frankness. 

"That  I  was  intolerable  and  my  poor  mother  a 
victim.  Live  and  learn,  my  dear."  (Jeanne  was 
not  yet  sufficiently  acclimatized.  People  she  was 
used  to  meet  did  not  say  things  to  which  urbane 
reply  is  almost  impossible,  nor  did  strangers  call 
her  "my  dear.") 

"I  am  learning,"  she  declared,  laughing. 

"If  I  had  time  I  could  convince  you  that  I  am 
not  Mamma's  tyrant,  but  her  slave.  It  is  I  who 
conduct  her  life  for  her.  I  who  provide  her  with 
beds,  luncheons  and  dinners.  She  does  all  our  for- 
getting and  I  have  to  do  the  remembering.  Europe 
is  strewn  with  her  handbags — it  is  her  inalienable 
prerogative  to  forget  them:  interference  there 
would  be  cruel.  All  I  can  do  is  to  prevent  her  put- 
ting anything  into  them  that  matters,  and  to  see 
that  they  are  themselves  of  no  value.     The  result 


196  THE  TIDEWAY 

is  some  vulgarity  occasionally — that  one  was  all  I 
could  buy  at  Rocheberg.  I  scoured  the  town  for 
it  while  Mamma  was  writing  a  sonnet  among  the 
ruins — In  the  Abbey  kitchen." 

"Does  Madame  write  sonnets?" 

"Thousands.  Hundreds  survive,  but  she  keeps 
bundles  of  them  in  her  handbags.  Do  you  always 
live  here?" 

"I  or  my  aunt?" 

"Oh,   you   don't  live   with  your   aunt?" 

"No — I  live  with  my  father.  But  I  come  here 
often  and  stay  long,  for  my  aunt  has  no  daughters 
left." 

"Dead?" 

"No,  one  Is  married,  one  Is  a  nun." 

"And  which  shall  you  do?" 

Jeanne  nearly  jumped.  Three  quarters  of  an 
hour  ago  she  had  never  heard  of  Miss  Hexham's 
existence;  and  now  that  extremely  pretty  young 
lady  was  asking  her  questions  that  none  of  her  old 
friends  had  ventured  on. 

"Can  you  advise  me?"  she  said,  smiling  rather 
coldly.     "Which  have  you  decided  on?" 

"I  can't  very  well  become  a  nun;  I  am  not  a 
Catholic.  The  worst  of  the  other  thing  is  one 
can't  tell  what  it's  like  till  one  has  tried,  and  when 
you  hanje  tried  you  have  to  stick  to  It." 

"That  reflection,"  said  Jeanne,  "has  perhaps  oc- 
curred to  profound  thinkers  before." 

"Have  you  definitely  resolved  to  dislike  me?" 
asked  Miss  Hexham,  standing  still  and  smiling  with 
great  vigor  at  a  magnolia  blossom. 

"Oh,  no.     But  give  me  time." 
("I    am    beginning    to    talk    very    oddly,"    she 
thought,  "I  am  learning  quite  quickly.") 

"There  is  really,"  said  Miss  Hexham,  "no  neces- 


FOR  SURMISE  197 

sity    to    dislike    me.      And — I    would    rather    you 
didn't." 

As  she  turned  her  pretty  face  to  Jeanne  it  had  so 
quaintly  fascinating  an  air  of  almost  childish  frank- 
ness that  the  other  girl  found  it  irresistible.  The 
more  so  that  it  was  not  quite  childish.  Jeanne  was, 
by  a  year  or  two,  at  least,  the  younger;  and  certainly 
Miss  Hexham  was  not  young  for  her  twenty  years. 
She  had  seen  much  more  of  the  world,  and  her  eyes 
did  not  miss  much.  Much  that  she  had  seen  might 
as  well  have  been  missed.  Yet  now  there  was  a 
very  youthful  appeal  in  her  voice  and  in  her  lovely 
eyes;  and  it  was  no  pose.  Of  all  pose  she  was  sim- 
ply incapable. 

"Mademoiselle,"  said  Jeanne  smiling,  and  per- 
haps because  she  was  not  always  smiling  her  smile 
seemed  to  be  a  gift  worth  something,  "indeed  there 
is  no  necessity  for  me  to  dislike  you.  But,  if  I  did, 
how  could  it  matter?  You  had  not  seen  me  an  hour 
ago,  and  in  another  couple  of  hours  you  will  have 
seen  the  last  of  me." 

"I  don't  know  about  that.  It  often  happens  to 
me  to  meet  a  new  word  which  I  had  not  known  the 
existence  of;  then  I  meet  it  constantly,  and  it  be- 
comes part  of  my  language,  and  I  wonder  how  I 
did  without  it  before.  And  so  it  is  with  people. 
You  need  not  count  on  never  seeing  me  again — I 
shall  crop  up.     Don't  you  go  to  Paris?" 

"Of  course  I  have  been  there,  and — well,  I  dare- 
say I  am  here  five  or  six  times  in  the  year — but  I 
never  live  there  now.  My  father  is  very  delicate, 
very  nervous,  and  since  my  mother  died  we  live 
almost  at  Champs-le-marais." 

"Is  that  your  chateau?" 

"Yes,  it  is  a  chateau." 

"Big?" 

"Very  big." 


198  THE  TIDEWAY 

"Where  is  it?" 

"In  the  Sologne.  It  is  a  very  quiet  place." 

"No  neighbors?" 

"Oh,  there  are  neighbors;  but  they  live  a  good 
way  off.  And  Papa  is  not  often  well  enough  to 
receive  company.  If  people  come  a  long  way  and 
are  not  received  they  give  up  coming." 

"And  you  have  no  sisters?" 

"None  unmarried.  There  are  three  of  us,  two 
girls  and  a  boy.  My  sister  is  six  years  older  than  I 
am — she  is  married,  and  her  husband,  M.  de  Chan- 
desfontaines,  divides  his  time  between  Paris  and 
their  home  in  Burgundy;  and  she  divides  her  time 
between  him  and  her  children  and  her  poor  peo- 
ple." 

"Chandesfontaine?  Is  your  sister  the  Princess 
de  Chandesfontaine?" 

"Yes." 

"I  know  that  name."  (Jeanne  was  not  surprised. 
It  was  sufficiently  illustrious.  But  she  did  not  say 
so.)      "And  your  brother,  is  he  also  married?" 

"No,  he  is  attache  to  our  Embassy  in  Rome.  He 
comes  home,  of  course,  but  I  am  mostly  alone  with 
my  father  at  Champs-le-marais." 

"And  when  you  come  here,  how  does  M.  de  St. 
Gatlen  get  on  without  you?" 

"His  sister,  the  Duchesse  d'Hesdigneul  comes 
to  take  care  of  him.     She  is  a  widow." 

"I  must  say  your  life  doesn't  sound  very  amusing. 
I  suppose  you  are  'out'  ?" 

"Out?"_ 

"Well,  in  England  one  is  'out'  when  one  has  been 
presented  to  the  King.  But  there  is  no  Court  at 
the  Elysees,  is  there?" 

"No.     Anything  but." 

"After  one  is  presented  one  goes  to  balls." 

"I  have  been  to  some.     Not  very  many."  , 


FOR  SURMISE  199 

*'DId  you  like  them?" 

"Some  of  them.  You  go  about  the  world  much, 
do  you  not?" 

"Yes,  we  never  sit  still.  I  get  tired.  But  my 
mother  likes  to  woo  fresh  inspiration  in  fresh 
scenes.  Almost  anything  does  if  it  is  new — well, 
not  new,  but  never  seen  before — a  mile-stone,  or  a 
mill,  a  fortalice,  or  a  crag,  or  a  dead  cow  in  a 
meadow.  The  microbe  of  inspiration  may  be  perch- 
ing on  any  of  them;  if  it  assaults  her  we  stop  and 
the  sonnet  ensues." 

"You  also  write  poetry?" 

"God  forbid!  I  detest  it.  I'm  all  for  people. 
Mamma  is  rather  bored  by  them," 

"By  all  people?" 

"Nearly  all.  She  says  the  great  ones  are  all 
dead.  For  me  I  thank  the  gods  I  am  not  great.  I 
should  like  to  go  and  talk  to  that  gardener,  and 
find  out  all  about  his  life  and  his  children,  and  what 
he  thinks  about." 

"He  probably  doesn't  think.  He  is  an  excellent 
servant.  His  children  squint,  like  their  mother;  she 
had  a  little  money." 

"I  think  you  are  as  hard  as  a  tenpenny  nail." 
(Jeanne  laughed  at  "un  clou  de  vingt  sous.") 

"Am  I?  You  say  you  are  all  for  people.  I'm 
all  for  facts." 

"Yes,  my  dear.  And  you  are  too  proud  to  go 
and  find  them." 

Jeanne  pondered  this  saying,  not  feeling  at  all 
sure  of  understanding  it. 

"'Proud'?"  she  queried,  not  as  well  pleased  as 
if  she  had  been  certain  it  was  a  bad  shot. 

"As  full  of  pride  as  an  egg  is  full  of  meat.  Not 
because  you  are  beautiful,  nor  (perhaps)  because 
of  your  rank,  though  I'n^'  not  so  sure  of  that. 
You're  a  duchess  or  a  princess,  I  suppose?" 


200  THE  TIDEWAY 

"My  father  is  a  duke.  I'm  simply  Jeanne  de 
St.  Gatien." 

"Very  simple,  indeed !  Je  suis  in  prince,  in  comte 
aussi  je  suis  le  Seigneur  de  Cony." 

"I  wonder,"  said  Jeanne  laughing,  "why  you  are 
scolding  me." 

"To  get  at  you.  You  sit  in  yourself  as  in  an  im- 
pregnable castle,  and  I  want  to  make  you  come  out." 

Jeanne  had  so  instinctively  felt  this  motive  that 
she  was  quite  surprised  at  its  being  boldly  avowed. 

"Having  sat  in  my  castle  all  my  life,"  she  said, 
laughing,  "is  it  worth  while  to  drag  me  out  for  half 
an  hour?    Of  course,  I  should  go  back." 

"It  is  always  worth  while  to  do  anything  that  is 
anything.  Providence  sent  me  here  on  purpose. 
You  are  obstinate  enough  to  go  back;  but  if  I  had, 
even  for  half  an  hour,  got  you  outside  you  would 
not  find  it  quite  the  same.  You  would  know  what 
it  was  like  outside  and  might  try  again.  You  are 
as  old  as  the  hills  at  eighteen  or  so.  The  selfish- 
ness of  the  people  for  whom  you  live  will  end  by 
making  you  as  selfish  as  a  statue.  Who  comes 
here?" 

Ill 

Miss  Hexham  had  turned  to  look  at  the  chateau; 
it  was  worth  looking  at,  and  the  afternoon  light  fell 
upon  its  western  front  flatteringly.  In  shadow  it 
had  an  air  of  somewhat  sad  reserve;  the  sunshine 
lent  it  geniality,  and  made  it  more  humane.  One 
could  now  imagine  children  playing  there  and  mak- 
ing irreverent  noise. 

It  is  my  uncle — and  my  brother,"  said  Jeanne. 
My  uncle  has  been  to  Fleche  to  fetch  him  from 
the  station." 

The  two  gentlemen  came  across  the  grass.     The 


FOR  SURMISE  201 

Marquis  de  Beaucaire  was  a  country  gentleman, 
who  only  dressed  when  he  was  in  Paris;  on  his 
estates  he  was  merely  clad.  He  looked  about  fifty. 
The  young  attache  was  rather  trim,  and  a  good 
deal  like  his  sister,  but  only  good-looking,  whereas 
Jeanne,  as  Miss  Hexham  had  remarked,  was  beau- 
tiful. 

"My  aunt  and  Lady  Hexham  have  gone  down  to 
the  lake,"  said  Jeanne;  then  she  presented  the  gen- 
tlemen to  Miss  Hexham.  They  uncovered  and  held 
their  hats  in  their  hands  while  they  spoke  to  her. 

"Mademoiselle,"  said  M.  de  Beaucaire,  "we 
bring  what  is  good  news  for  us,  but  bad  news  for 
you.  You  will  have  to  honor  us  with  your  presence 
longer  than  you  intended.  We  have  been  talking  to 
your  mechanicier.  He  tells  us  that  your  car  gave 
trouble  all  the  way  from  Rocheberg " 

"That  is  true,  but  Mamma  did  not  mind.  The 
first  stoppage  occurred  where  there  was  a  ruined 
chateau,  and  there  was  something  inspiring  at  each 
of  the  others." 

"And  now,"  added  the  Marquis,  "the  car  will 
not  budge  at  all.  The  only  plan  is  to  let  a  car  of 
our  own  tow  it  to  Fleche,  where  there  is  quite  a 
good  garage.  But,  if  we  can  imagine  you  to  be  so 
kind,  you  and  madame  must  stay  here  till  to-mor- 
row." 

Jeanne  perceived  at  once  that  htt  uncle  was 
merely  hospitable,  but  that  her  brother  for  his  own 
sake  hoped  that  the  ladies  (only  one  of  whom  he 
had  seen)  might  be  induced  to  stay  on. 

"We  will  go,"  she  said,  "and  find  my  aunt,  who, 
I  hope,  will  persuade  you  to  remain." 

It  was  ultimately  decided  thai*.  Lady  Hexham 
and  her  daughter  should  stay  till  next  day.  Con- 
sidering how  much  Miss  Hexham  had  seemed  de- 
sirous of  her   friendship,  Jeanne  was  a  little  sur- 


202  THE  TIDEWAY 

prised  to  perceive  that  this  decision  was  due  not  to 
her,  but  to  her  mother.  All  the  same,  the  English 
girl  still  stuck  close  to  the  French  one,  a  circum- 
stance not  lost  on  the  Comte  de  St.  Gatien,  who  was 
fully  prepared  to  relieve  his  sister  of  the  easy  duty 
of  entertaining  the  young  stranger.  Lady  Hexham 
fell  to  him  instead. 

"You  are  attache  at  your  Rome  Embassy,"  she 
observed,  in  a  far-away  manner.  "Ah!  Rome  is 
home  to  me."  (The  rhyme  had  served  her  in  more 
than  one  sonnet.)     "Everywhere  else  I  am  in  exile." 

The  word  exile  she  had  found  unmanageable. 
No  dexterity  would  rhyme  it  with  smile;  she  had 
coined  "flexile,"  but  had  got  little  change  out  of  it. 
She  adored  language,  but  words  instead  of  being 
her  henchwomen  were  too  apt  to  be  her  shrewish  mis- 
tress. M.  de  St.  Gatien  behaved  well,  but  he  rather 
wished  that  Miss  Hexham  were  doubly  an  orphan. 
To  be  bored  and  to  seem  interested  were  part  of 
his  profession;  but  he  could  not  forget  that  he  was 
now  on  holiday. 

"Why,"  he  asked  his  sister,  as  she  turned  into  her 
bedroom  to  get  ready  for  dinner,  "do  you  absorb 
Mademoiselle?     Her  Mamma  gives  me  earache." 

He  enjoyed  perfect  health,  and  looked  it;  when 
disposed  to  indisposition  he  invariably  professed 
ear-ache. 

"Loulon,  it  is  not  my  fault.  But  Mademoiselle 
arrives  with  a  mission  to  do  me  good ;  and  you 
know  the  English — their  duties  those  they  will  do." 

"Pray  let  her  do  me  good.  I  need  it  more.  My 
ills  lie  too  deep  for  mothers." 

"Well,  you  must  do  It  all  yourself.  I  will  say 
this  for  her " 

"The  mother?" 

"No,  of  course;  the  daughter.  I  half  thought  that 
when  you  cropped  up.  .  .  ." 


FOR  SURMISE  203 

"Cropped  up!" 

"You  see,  I  am  half  English  already !  When  you 
arrived  I  should  not  have  been  surprised  if  she  had 
left  me  a  little  in  the  lurch.  But,  to  tell  the  truth. 
Monsieur,  she  hardly  seemed  to  remember  you  had 
arrived. 

"So  I  perceived." 

"To  me  she  is  affectionate.  Really  affectionate. 
Par  de  blague.     I  like  her;  and  I  did  not  mean  to." 

"She  had  much  better  like  me.  She  would  get  on 
quicker.  You  know,  my  excellent  Jeanne,  that  you 
are  as  approachable  as  an  obelisk." 

At  dinner  there  were  three  gentlemen  and  three 
ladies.  The  latter  have  been  accounted  for;  the 
third  gentleman  seemed  to  be  everybody's  uncle — 
except  Lady  Hexham's  and  her  daughter's.  He  sat 
by  Jeanne  and  talked  furtively  of  food,  a  subject 
which  he  Illustrated  by  copious  anecdote. 

M.  de  St.  Gatien  sat  next  Miss  Hexham  and 
wished  the  party  were  larger.  He  had  little  oppor- 
tunity for  tete-a-tete;  with  only  six  people  at  table 
the  conversation  was  apt  to  be  too  general.  He  be- 
gan to  think  better  of  Lady  Hexham  when  one  of 
her  peculiarities  seemed  to  his  enterprising  mind  to 
open  the  possibility  of  a  small  adventure. 

"My  mother,  I  perceive,"  observed  Miss  Hex- 
ham to  him,  "has  lost  her  pocket  handkerchief.  She 
is  sniffing.  Armed  with  a  handkerchief  she  never 
needs  one.  Conscious  of  Its  absence  she  develops 
Instantaneous  catarrh." 

It  was  true  that  Lady  Hexham  had  sniffed,  and 
that  lamentably;  her  replies  to  M.  de  Beaucaire 
were  becoming  embarrassed  and  her  whole  manner 
much  pre-occupied. 

"Muriel !"  she  said  appcalingly.  "It  was  in  my 
little  bag." 

"I  suppose  you  left  it  in  the  drawing-room  ..." 


204  THE  TIDEWAY 

*'I  know  I  brought  it  down,  for  I  was  sitting  on  it 
in  the  salon  and  it  humped  me." 

"If,"  said  Muriel,  getting  up.  "Madame  de 
Beaucaire  would  excuse  me- " 

At  the  moment  no  servant  was  in  the  room. 
M.  de  St.  Gatien  instantly  rose,  too,  but  said  noth- 
ing. It  looked  as  though  he  were  merely  going  to 
open  the  door  for  Miss  Hexham.  But  he  had  deeper 
designs.  He  did  open  the  door,  but  when  she 
had  passed  out  he  followed,  and  shut  it  behind 
him. 

"I  know  exactly  where  it  is,"  he  declared,  keep- 
ing beside  her.  How  needlessly  quick  she  walks, 
he  complained  to  himself.      "There  is  no  hurry." 

"I  think  /  do.  But  one  can  never  be  sure;  it  is 
quite  possible  Mamma  is  sitting  on  it  at  this  mo- 
ment." 

The  drawing-room  was  not  yet  lighted  up,  and 
it  was  already  dusk.  Arrived  there  this  young  diplo- 
matist made  some  haste,  and  felt  about  in  the  re- 
cesses of  a  large  easy  chair.  He  uttered  a  small 
expression  of  disappointment. 

"Haven't  you  found  it?"   asked  Miss  Hexham. 

"Have  you?" 

"No.  But  you  were  supposed  to  know  exactly 
where  it  was." 

"The  wisest  are  less  wise  than  they  think  at 
times,"  he  suggested  airily,  continuing  to  search  in 
all  sorts  of  places,  chimneypiece  included. 

"Yes,  that  is  true,"  agreed  Muriel.  "You  have 
not  examined  the  coal-box." 

"Mademoiselle,  your  tone  is  ironical.  It  could 
not  be  in  the  coal-box  unless  it  had  been  secreted 
intentionally.  And  you  yourself — you  are  aban- 
doning the  search  already!" 

It  was  true  that  Miss  Hexham  had  turned 
toward  the  door  and  seemed  on  the  point  of  retir- 


FOR  SURMISE  205 

ing  to  the  dining-room.  She  laughed  and  said 
cheerfully: 

"It  has  been  secreted  intentionally," 

"In  the  coal-box?" 

(But  he  did  not  go  to  look  there;  he  preferred  to 
keep  an  eye  on  the  lady.) 

"No,  Monsieur,  not  in  the  coal-box.  In  your 
pocket."  Her  laugh  was  distinctly  at  him,  but  he 
determined  to  laugh  with  her. 

"The  highest  wisdom,"  she  observed  senten- 
tiously,  "is  simplicity." 

"How  did  you  know  I  had  found  it  and — hidden 
it  again?" 

"You  were  rather  in  too  great  a  hurry.  You 
almost  pushed  past  me.  We  must  now  hasten  to 
Mamma's  relief.  If  she  is  kept  long  in  suspense 
she  is  capable  of  sneezing." 

She  evidently  meant  to  go,  and  go  she  did. 

"How  extremely  fast  you  walk,"  he  remarked. 

"The  distance  is  not  great;  but  if  the  pace 
fatigues  you  I  will  take  word  that  you  are  coming 
and  relieve  Mamma's  mind.  There  is  a  chair,  you 
might  rest  a  little." 

"I  can  never  rest  alone.  I  require  assistance. 
Solitary  repose  is  mere  inaction  and  exhausts  me. 
I  am  sorry  you  have  been  in  such  a  hurry — I  wanted 
to  talk  to  you  about  my  sister." 

"I  like  talking  to  her  better.  Come,  Monsieur, 
am  I  to  open  the  door  myself?" 

IV 

They  all  left  the  dining-room  together,  but  the 
gentleman  who  was  everybody's  uncle  did  not  re- 
appear in  the  drawing-room.  M.  de  St.  Gatien  did 
not  find  that  the  change  to  it  promised  any  greater 
facility  for  conversation  with  Miss  Hexham.     She 


2o6  THE  TIDEWAY 

rejoined  his  sister,  almost  as  if  after  a  long  absence, 
and  her  mother  bore  down  upon  him. 

"The  Coliseum!"  she  exclaimed,  "what  must  it 
be  looking  like  to-night!  The  moon  was  rising  be- 
fore dinner — the  harvest  moon." 

For  a  moment  Loulon  felt  his  blood  tingle  to 
rebellion.  Then  a  gentler  feeling  toward  this  long- 
backed  poetess  suggested  itself,  for  he  was  not 
without  resource. 

"It  may  be,"  he  said,  speaking  softly  and  not 
too  loud,  "mere  association  and  home  prejudice. 
But  for  my  part  I  have  never  seen  anything  that 
moves  me  more  than  the  moon  (the  harvest  moon) 
upon  our  ruins  here.  They  are,  of  course,  haunted. 
They  lie  behind  the  lake.  By  such  a  moon  as  this 
(harvest)  moon  to-night  they  seem  to  lie  in  it.  Sil- 
ver in  a  bath  of  steel.  And  one  can  hardly  help 
seeing  the  ghosts  of  the  White  Sisters  in  the  ruined 
choir.  You  know  the  convent  was  sacked  in  the 
Revolution."  He  spoke  earnestly,  but  dreamily, 
almost  absent-mindedly. 

"I  should  like,"  murmured  Lady  Hexham,  "to 
see  that." 

"Ma  tante!"  he  said,  with  a  singular  return  of 
vivacity,  "Madame  wishes  to  go  and  see  the  ruins 
by  moonlight."  Then,  briskly  going  to  his  aunt,  he 
almost  whispered :  "Yoii  need  not  come,  nor  my 
uncle.  You  play  your  piquet.  /  will  escort  the 
English  poetess." 

His  air  of  polite  martyrdom  might  have  deceived 
the  very  elect.  It  did  not  deceive  Jeanne.  She  had 
heard  the  proposal  and  watched  the  little  conference 
preceding  it;  and  she  was  a  good  sister. 

"We  will  go,  too,"  she  said  to  Muriel.  And  they 
went;  but  it  was  Jeanne  who  took  possession  of 
Lady  Hexham. 

At  first  Miss  Hexham  seemed  inclined  to  avenge 


FOR  SURMISE  207 

herself  by  a  wilful  silence.  Her  temper,  however, 
was  too  good  for  obstinate  unpleasantness.  But 
when  she  broke  into  a  low  laugh  M.  de  St.  Gatien 
was  not  entirely  satisfied. 

"May  I  not  share  your  merriment?"  he  Inquired, 
with  some  dignity.  Now  dignity  in  Miss  Hexham's 
opinion  should  never  be  permitted  to  walk  arm  in 
arm  with  Impudence. 

"You  have  every  claim  to  share  in  it,"  she  replied 
ingenuously,  "having  occasioned  It." 

"It  is  a  great  thing  to  be  amusing  without  having 
even  tried  to  be.  Many  wits  fail  In  spite  of  la- 
borious effort." 

"Perhaps  one  should  not  laugh  at  a  young  man's 
devotion  to  his  profession." 

"My  profession!" 

"I  understood  your  sister  to  say  that  It  was  diplo- 
macy." 

The  moon  was  really  splendid;  her  light  upon 
the  smooth  lawns  was  more  golden  than  silvery. 
What  M.  de  St.  Gatien  noted  with  greater  admira- 
tion was  that  it  completed  the  beauty  of  his  scoffing 
companion. 

"Do  you  think,"  he  asked  meekly,  "that  a  tone 
of  mockery  suits  this  serene  stillness?" 

"As  well  as  plots  and  infinitely  trivial  schemlngs. 
The  night  is  not  only  silent,  but  sincere." 

"I  am  sincere.  Do  you  demand  my  silence  also? 
That  I  think  would  be  presumption  on  my  part. 
Only  to  established  intimacy  is  silence  permitted; 
I  am  no  more  than  your  host." 

"If  I  were  sincere  and  not  silent,  you  would  have 
the  right  to  call  me  rude." 

"Prove  me." 

"I  would  rather  be  talking  to  your  sister  than  to 
her  brother." 


2o8  THE  TIDEWAY 

That  she  was  sincere  was  the  worst  of  it.  He 
knew  she  was. 

"You  at  least,"  she  said,  "are  not  rude.  You 
might  have  told  me  that  /  was,  and  I  think  you 
would  have  been  right." 

"Oh,  no,"  he  answered  quietly.  "I  could  not. 
I  am  a  man." 

"Ah,  but,"  she  cried,  "I  do  not  want  mean 
feminine  privilege.  What  I  meant  was  simply  this. 
You  spoke  of  your  sincerity — she  is  sincere.  She 
will  not  even  pretend  to  like  me — but  her  disap- 
proval is  worth  fighting  against.  Her  reserve  is 
part  of  her  fine  character.  Nevertheless,  I  would 
like  to  violate  it.  Can  you  not  see  what  is  happen- 
ing to  her?  But  wait — before  you  answer,  I  want 
to  finish  my  explanation.  I  would,  I  say,  like  to 
make  her  talk;  not  to  make  her  like  myself,  but  be- 
cause of  something  I  would,  if  I  could,  break  up  in 
her.  There  isn't  much  time.  Is  there?  Or  much 
opportunity?  I  simply  said  out  what  I  meant,  and 
it  didn't  sound  courteous  to  you.  I  would  like  to  be 
talking  to  her.     And " 

"And  what  else  ?" 

"It  seems  to  me  better  worth  while  than  making 
moonlight  talk  with  you.  Listen:  I  see  you  can  be 
patient  and  gentle,  too.  What  you  say  to  me  you 
might  say  as  well,  or  better,  to  any  other  girl.  It  is 
part  of  a  convention.  What  I  would,  If  I  could, 
say  to  her,  might,  If  I  knew  how  to  say  It,  do  some 
good." 

If  she  had  not  spoken  very  rapidly,  without 
pauses,  he  might  have  thrust  In  at  more  than  one 
point.  That  she  afforded  him  no  such  pauses  was, 
he  knew,  not  accidental.  He  was  clever  enough 
and  sincere  enough  to  perceive  her  absolute  Incapa- 
bility of  coquetry.  It  was  his  sister  in  whom  she 
was  Interested. 


FOR  SURMISE  209 

"Now,"  he  said,  with  a  plain  gentleness  that  ad- 
vanced him  to  a  point  of  intimacy  he  could  never 
have  reached  by  scheming,  "tell  me  what  you  mean 
about  Jeanne.     For,  really,  I  do  not  understand." 

"That  is  just  it!  None  of  you  do.  You  do  not 
see  that  she  is  a  girl  of  very  fine  and  noble  nature, 
whose  character  will  be  spoiled  unless  something 
intervenes.  You  look  half  froisse  already.  You 
say  the  moonlight  demands  sincerity,  and  mine  sets 
your  back  up.  But  I  do  not  care.  Listen!  I  am 
going  to  be  worse.  The  truth  is  everyone  about  her 
is  selfish " 

"I  am  sure  Jeanne  did  not  tell  you  so." 

**0f  course  not.  But,  well  done !  You  are  be- 
coming clearly  warm  like  the  moonlight.  We  shall 
get  on  much  better  that  way.  Well,  I  repeat,  your 
father,  your  aunt  the  Duchess,  your  aunt  here — as 
far  as  your  sister  is  concerned — are  all  selfish." 

Her  tone  was  not  that  of  a  philippic.  Her  voice, 
always  very  musical,  had  sunk  to  a  low,  restrained 
pitch.  She  was  not  scolding,  but  she  was  pleading. 
This  he  recognized,  and  turning  for  a  moment  to 
glance  at  the  girl's  lovely  face,  he  thought,  "She  is 
speaking  of  a  thing  she  knows.  Her  life  is  nailed 
to  some  other's  selfishness." 

"Duty,"  she  went  on,  "is  a  noble  thing;  a  fine 
motive  of  life;  but  the  acceptance,  when  it  is  only 
succumbing  to  their  imposition  of  an  incubus  of  poor 
duties  dulls  some  souls  and  chokes  some  lives — 
many  girls'  lives.  I  do  not  want  anyone  to  spurn 
the  duties,  but  I  want  Jeanne  to  take  care.  There 
is  nothing  ignoble  in  the  role  of  garde-malade  to 
one's  father — even  if  he  is  not  ill.  She  would  not 
be  Jeanne  if  she  refused  it.  But  a  girl's  character 
has  to  shoot  outwards,  and  blossom  outwards,  and 
bear  fruit  outwards.  The  danger  for  her  is  that 
there  should  be  no  outwards.     She  must  live,  and 


2IO  THE  TIDEWAY 

be  somebody;  she  can  not  be  a  useful  nobody;  of 
that  dull  mechanic  role  she  is  not  capable,  whoever 
may  be. 

"The  danger  is  that  she  will  be  simply  Made- 
moiselle de  St.  Gatien,  year  by  year,  settling  down 
more  hopelessly  into  the  slough  of  the  despond  of 
her  high  birth,  her  rank,  her  impregnable  position; 
without  contact  with  anything;  all  the  world  out- 
side, and  inside  nothing  but  a  girl's  ghost.  If  I 
were  eloquent  I  could  make  you  understand.  But 
I  only  know  what  I  mean  and  can  not  say  it.  Love 
will  be  beneath  her.  Life  will  be  beneath  her. 
Pride  will  be  her  only  confidante." 

Being  a  youn^  man,  perhaps,  it  was  not  unnatural 
that  he  was  thinking,  while  the  girl  spoke  thus 
oddly,  rather  more  of  her  than  of  his  sister.  Odd 
he  did  think  it.  But,  somehow,  its  strangeness  did 
not  make  him  simply  think  "The  English  are  all 
mad.  She  has  a  bee  in  her  bonnet."  He  merely 
understood  that  she  was  not  a  girl  to  flirt  with  and 
forget.  He  had  quite  abandoned  the  idea  of  flirta- 
tion, but  he  did  not  think  he  should  easily  forget 
her;  and  he  found  it  more  interesting  to  be  walking 
by  her  side  now  than  he  would  have  found  it  had 
flirtation  been  possible. 

"It  is  to  me,"  he  said  quite  frankly,  "wonderful 
that  you  should  care  so  greatly.  I  see  you  do 
care." 

"Strange  that  I  should  care  when  I  believe  that 
I  see  a  fine  and  noble  nature  that  threatens  to  be 
stunted  and  made  empty?  Is  not  emptiness  being 
full  of  nothing?" 

"Mademoiselle,  what  can  she  do?  French  girls 
of  our  class  do  not  make  themselves  careers." 

"Girls  of  any  class  have  a  right  to  live.  I  did 
not  dream  of  what  you  call  a  career.  Girls  of  your 
class  in  France  marry  or  become  nuns." 


FOR  SURMISE  211 

"I  hope  she  will  not  become  a  nun!" 
"Of  course.    When  you  come  to  France  for  your 
furlough,  or  whatever  you  call  it,  you  like  to  find 
her  here!" 

"For  my  part  I  should  be  glad  that  she  married." 
"And  you  know  that  she  will  not  while  your 
father  lives,  and  he  may  live  for  thirty  years.  Could 
she  marry  then?  She  can  not  marry  because  she  is 
Mile,  de  St.  Gatien,  and  no  man  who  would  be  fit 
for  her  would  marry  your  father's  nurse,  and  be 
shut  up  in  his  enormous  hospital  in  the  Sologne. 
She  has  no  more  idea  of  marrying  than  I  have  of 
cutting  my  throat.  She  understands.  She  is  to  be 
Mademoiselle  de  St.  Gatien  and  leave  her  money 
to  your  children." 

Then  Muriel,  to  his  surprise,  turned  sharply  to 
him  and  laughed.  "And  now,"  she  asked,  "are 
you  glad  you  took  so  much  trouble  to  make  my  in- 
nocent mother  declare  a  longing  for  the  moon—the 
harvest  moon?  Has  it  been  a  triumph  of  diplo- 
macy?" 


Monsieur  and  Madame  de  Beaucaire  did  as  their 
nephew  had  suggested  and  sat  down  to  piquet. 

"They  say,"  remarked  the  Marquis,  "that  the 
English  are  all  mad.  It  was  the  old  one  that  wanted 
to  go  and  find  ghosts  by  moonlight  in  the  ruins. 
If  it  had  been  the  girl  it  would  have  been  very  well. 
Also  she  makes  poetry — the  old  one." 

"Among  the  letters  you  brought  from  Fleche  was 
one  from  Gaston  de  Pierngrise.  It  was  his  wife 
from  whom  they  brought  an  introduction.  They 
knew  Lord  and  Lady  Hexham  when  they  were  at 
our  London  Embassy.  He  says  they  are  of  the 
very  best  position,  and  Lord  Hexham  was  charming, 


212  THE   TIDEWAY 

also     extremely     clever.       Madame     was     always 
bizarre." 

"She  looks  like  an  asparagus  without  sauce." 

"She  was  enormously  rich.  So  was  the  husband, 
and  Mademoiselle  will  have  it  all :  there  never  was 
any  son.  He  says  she  would  have  half  London  run- 
ning after  her,  but  her  mother  hates  London  and 
takes  her  all  over  Europe  in  a  motor-car.  It  seems 
to  me  that  the  girl  is  sick  of  it.  The  mother  is 
bete,  and  selfish,  too.  I  will  take  three  cards, 
please." 

"The  girl  is  pretty.     I  take  five  cards,  you  see." 

"Certainly  she  is  pretty:  but  her  mother  must  be 
blind  not  to  see  that  all  this  rushing  about  in  every 
sort  of  weather  will  ruin  the  child's  look — she  is 
too  brown  already,  and  too  thin.  She  has  a  beauti- 
ful skin  and  it  will  grow  coarse  and  harsh.  I  do 
not  look  at  my  cards." 

Monsieur  and  Madame  de  Beaucaire  had  just 
finished  the  sixth  hand  when  the  moonlighters  came 
in. 

"It  was  exquisite!"  Lady  Hexham  declared, 
"and  M.  de  St.  Gatien  was  so  eloquent  that  no  won- 
der a  ghost  came  to  listen  to  him." 

"You  saw  a  ghost,  Madame!" 

"Oh,  Mamma!  It  was  only  me,"  Muriel  ex- 
claimed. "I  heard  M.  de  St.  Gatien  telling  you 
where  you  should  look,  and  I  strolled  round  there, 
behind  the  pillars  in  the  shadow,  then  crossed  a 
slant  of  moonlight!" 

Loulon  had  no  further  talk  with  her.  She  soon 
went  over  to  his  uncle  and  began  a  conversation 
with  him  that  lasted  some  time.  They  got  on  ex- 
cellently, and  M.  de  Beaucaire  found  her,  what 
neither  Jeanne  nor  Loulon  had  done,  extremely 
amusing.  "She  is  full  of  wit,"  he  told  himself, 
"she  is  spiritiielle  et  fine.    And  not  tiresome.    Talk- 


FOR  SURMISE  213 

ing  girls  usually  are.  Her  manners  are  pretty  too: 
frank,  but  not  bold.  She  has  grace  and  distinction. 
What  does  the  mother  mean  carrying  her  about 
the  roads  of  Europe  like  a  caravan-girl!" 

He  was  a  shrewd  person  and  it  was  not  lost  upon 
him  that  his  nephew  was  envious  of  that  tete-a-tete. 
It  delighted  him:  when  one  is  a  grandfather,  and 
not  at  all  a  lady's  man,  it  is  pleasant  to  see  hand- 
some young  men  neglected  in  one's  own  favor. 

Madame  de  Beaucaire  thought  it  rather  a  pity 
that  Loulon  should  have  only  his  aunt  and  sister 
and  the  young  lady's  mother  to  talk  to. 

When  the  party  broke  up  Loulon  went  to  his  sis- 
ter's room. 

"Did  she,"  inquired  Jeanne,  "ask  you  to  like 
her?" 

The  question,  or  rather  his  sister's  tone,  her  atti- 
tude toward  the  English  girl,  somehow  annoyed 
him. 

"Far  from  it." 

"Perhaps  she  perceived  it  was  unnecessary." 

"Quite  unnecessary.  I  like  her  very  much.  But 
it  is  a  matter  of  perfect  indifference  to  her." 

"What  am  I  to  say?  What  did  you  come  to 
say?" 

"I  came  to  talk  about  her.  But  I  no  longer  feel 
disposed  to.  The  subject  bores  you.  Perhaps  also 
you  are  tired  and  I  had  better  say  good  night." 

"I  am  never  tired.  As  to  the  subject  boring  me 
— I  am  simply  indifferent.  I  am  not  specially  inter- 
ested in  this  girl :  she  is  a  new  type  to  me,  and  I  am 
not  sure  that  I  admire  it." 

"You  mean  you  are  sure  that  you  don't." 

"Put  it  how  you  choose.  You  must  be  fair, 
Loulon,  and  remember  that  I  am  not  like  you.  You 
have  seen  the  world  and  live  in  it  and  meet  for- 
eigners often.     I  see  very  few.     I  am  simply  French. 


214  THE  TIDEWAY 

To  me  it  is  a  new  thing  to  meet  a  girl  with  her  heart 
in  her  mouth." 

As  Miss  Hexham  had  said,  Jeanne  was  sincere, 
and  she  only  said  now  what  she  actually  felt.  Still, 
just  as  M.  de  Beaucaire  had  been  conscious  that  his 
nephew  was  envious  of  his  own  tete-a-tete  with 
Muriel,  so  was  her  brother  instinctively  conscious 
that  Jeanne  was  jealous  of  the  attraction  the  Eng- 
lish girl  inspired  in  him.  Jeanne  had  seen  him  flirt 
very  often,  but  only  now  how  this  sort  of  jealousy 
assailed  her.  Poor  girl !  He  was  the  person  she 
loved  best,  and  she  would  like  him  to  love  her  best. 

"When  one  has  no  heart,"  he  said,  slightly  red- 
dening, "there  is  no  danger  of  its  mounting  to  the 
lips." 

He  was  not  thinking  of  his  sister,  but  of  count- 
less women  he  had  known,  in  whose  mouths  was 
only  the  more  or  less  deftly  veiled  demand  for 
flattery.  But  it  was  natural  that  Jeanne  should  be 
thinking  of  herself. 

"I  would  rather  have  no  heart,"  she  said  coldly, 
"than  put  out  my  tongue  to  show  it." 

"Jeanne!"  he  begged.  "I  wish  you  would  not 
abuse  her.  It  seems  Jiard.  Because  she  thinks  so 
much  of  you." 

"That  is  just  it.  I  do  not  ask  her  to  think  much 
of  me.  It  is  an  impertinence.  I  am  a  French  girl, 
and  it  seems  to  me  intrusion.  Do  you  think  your 
sister  has  to  accept  the  alms  of  friendship  from 
any  chance  stranger  who  turns  aside  off  the  high 
road!" 

"Naturally,"  he  said  quietly,  "I  know  that  my 
sister  is  Mademoiselle  de  St.  Gatien." 

Of  course  he  was  thinking  of  what  Muriel  had 
said.  Her  voice  was  echoing  in  him,  and  the  echo 
affected  him  more  than  the  actual  words  had  done. 
Perhaps  because  the  words  had  brought  him  a  new 


FOR  SURMISE  215 

Idea  that  did  not  then  convince,  and  now  the  idea 
had  lodged,  and  he  saw  that  it  was  true.  Certainly 
he  also  perceived  that  the  girl  herself  would  not 
be  able  to  do  any  good:  possibly  she  too  knew  she 
had  not  much  chance  of  success,  that  she  was  giving 
herself  to  a  forlorn  hope :  if  so,  being  brave  him- 
self, he  must  admire  her  the  more.  To  assail  his 
sister  in  her  fortress  must  demand,  he  was  con- 
scious, a  very  valorous  readiness  for  self-sacrifice. 
That  it  implied  also  some  lack  of  tact  he  did  not 
pause  to  remember.  Tact  is  mostly  supreme  calcu- 
lation, and  the  bravery  that  hurls  itself  to  a  for- 
lorn hope  must  ignore  calculation.  All  wise  prob- 
abilities are  defied  by  the  simply  brave. 

"I  am  afraid,"  he  said  gently,  "that  you  will 
never  like  her " 

"At  last  we  are  agreed." 

"It  is  a  pity.     She  is  worth  liking " 

"She  will  be  gone  to-morrow." 

"Not  as  far  as  I  am  concerned.  Jeanne,  I  am 
determined  that  to-morrow  shall  not  see  the  end 
of  my  intercourse  with  her.  You  may  as  well 
know." 

"Is  it  as  bad  as  that?" 

"It  is  as  bad  as  that." 

He  did  not  retort  her  certainly  provocative  tone. 
His  tone  was  gentle ;  grave,  but  friendly  and  kindly. 
He  had  abandoned  any  idea  of  being  cross. 

"I  just  want  you  to  know,"  he  added  smiling. 

Their  eyes  met  in  the  mirror  over  the  chimney- 
piece,  and  Jeanne  told  herself  that  he  had,  some- 
how, bettered.  A  new  something  had  come  into  his 
face.     He  was  more  a  man. 

All  her  life  afterwards  she  was  glad  that,  meet- 
ing his  eyes  in  the  looking-glass,  she  had  answered 
his  smile  with  her  own.  Two  roads  met  there ; 
division  and  affection.     She  had  been  within  an  ace 


2i6  THE  TIDEWAY 

of  walking  away  into  final  isolation  down  the  wrong 
one. 

"I  succumb,"  she  said,  just  touching  his  shoul- 
der for  an  instant. 

He  only  lifted  his  own  hand  to  touch  hers,  and 
said  nothing. 

"I  thought,"  she  said,  "I  was  stronger.  But  I 
cannot  lose  my  brother." 

"Poor  Jeanne!  You  haven't  much.  Your 
brother  hasn't  been  much.  There  will  be  more  of 
him." 

He  did  not  say,  "And  you  will  gain  a  sister." 

And,  to  reward  him  for  not  saying  it,  she  said  it. 

"If  you  succeed  I  shall  have  a  sister." 

"I  shall  not  succeed  soon." 

"She  is  not  hard-hearted." 

"No.  But  whole-hearted.  And  I  have  no  place 
in  her  heart  yet.  It  will  not  be  easy  to  find  the  way 
in.     Patience!" 

"You  patient?" 

"Yes.  It  is  the  first  time  I  have  wanted  anything 
worth  patience.     Can  you  not  see  the  change?" 

"I  see  it — with  wonder." 

"Yes.  I  give  you  leave  to  wonder.  To  me  mar- 
riage has  seemed  the  end  of  youth.  Now  I  know 
it  is  the  beginning  of  manhood." 

"That  is  the  change.  I  saw  it  in  there.  You 
were  a  fascinating  lad.  And  this  girl  has  come 
round  the  corner  and  made  you  a  man." 

"Jeanne,"  he  said,  "no  girl  could  do  that.  It  is 
what  she  had  in  her  hand.  I  wish  some  man  would 
come  round  the  corner  with  it  in  his  hand  for  you." 

"To  make  me  a  woman?  It  is  better  to  be  a  girl 
as  long  as  one  can.  When  I  am  a  woman  I  shall  be 
an  old  one.  It  is  different  with  boys — they  are  only 
boys  till  they  become  men:  incomplete,  unripe." 

Her  tone  was  no  longer  hostile,  or  hard.     So 


FOR  SURMISE  217 

long  as  she  spoke  of  him  and  his  future  it  was  now 
gentle  and  friendly;  but  when  she  spoke  of  herself 
it  was  dry  and  reserved.  He  was  quite  aware  that 
she  had  brushed  aside  his  allusion  to  hej'  future. 

"Jeanne,"  he  said,  "it  is  well  to  be  a  girl  as  long 
as  you  can.  It  is  also  well  to  be  an  old  woman  when 
the  almanack  insists — when  a  woman  hears  children 
call  her  'grandmother.'  But  to  be  an  old  woman 
at  seven  or  eight  and  twenty,  that  is  not  well!" 

"I  am  not  twenty!" 

"No.  But  you  are  already  too  old,  because  you 
have  already  given  up  expectation;  you  abdicate  the 
future,  and,  without  liking  it,  you  say  to  the  present, 
'Let  it  be  permanence.'  " 

It  may  seem  that  Jeanne  must  instantly  resent 
this,  in  arms,  as  she  had  resented  Miss  Hexham. 
But  she  did  not.  Miss  Hexham  was  a  stranger, 
Loulon  was  her  brother.  It  even  soothed  her 
lonely  spirit  that  he  should  think  of  her.  She 
thought  it  was  a  part  of  the  change  in  him. 

"Lovers,"  she  thought,  "are  notoriously  selfish 
and  self-absorbed.  Love  has  made  him  unselfish. 
He  can  feel  outside  himself.  Lovers  are  supposed 
to  see  only  one  girl  in  all  the  world,  to  him  love  has 
revealed  the  existence  of  his  sister." 

It  touched  her  close.  Are  we  not  all  of  us  touched 
by  the  pathos  of  our  own  lives?  She  knew  what  an 
arid  waste  her  life  was;  that  he  should  know,  at  once 
made  it  less  desert.  She  had  loved  him  as  girls  so 
often  will  love  an  only  brother  whom  they  know  well 
to  be  selfish.  She  had  not  grudged  him  the  pleasant 
sunlight  of  his  life,  though  her  own  was  all  a  mono- 
tone of  shade;  but  she  had  never  expected  him  to 
think  of  her  life,  or  to  realize  its  sterility. 

He  not  only  knew  but  he  was  resolved  to  inter- 
fere. 

"Look  here,  Jeanne,"  he  said  simply,  with  a  cheer- 


2i8  THE  TIDEWAY 

ful  decision  that  was  comfortable  to  her.  "I  am 
not  going  to  see  you  sacrificed.  There's  no  reason 
why  you  should  be  a  garde-malade  than  why  Adele 
should  be,  or  I,  either.  And  Papa  is  more  than  half 
malade  imaginaire.  When  I  go  back  to  Rome,  I 
intend  that  you  shall  go  with  me.  The  Ambassadress 
is  rtiy  excellent  good  friend,  and  she  is  also  our 
cousin,  as  you  know.  I  shall  say  nothing  till  she 
invites  you,  then  I  shall  simply  tell  them.  Papa  and 
Aunt  Celestine,  that  it  is  out  of  the  question  to  re- 
fuse. Have  I  ever  failed  to  get  anything  that  I 
wanted  out  of  them?" 

"Nothing  that  you  have  wanted." 

"Well,  I  want  this.  You  need  not  look  doubt- 
ful. I  shall  manage  it.  It  will  not  be  nearly  so 
difficult  to  make  Papa  understand  that  he  must  do 
without  you  for  six  months  as  it  will  be  to  persuade 
Miss  Hexham  that  she  cannot  very  well  do  with- 
out me  for  her  whole  life.  But  I  intend  to  do  that. 
I  intend  to  do  both." 

"How  long,"  asked  Jeanne,  laughing,  "will  it 
take?" 

"To  persuade  Papa,  quarter  of  an  hour. — To 
persuade  Miss  Hexham,  perhaps  a  quarter  of  a 
century." 

"I  do  not  know,"  said  his  sister,  "which  to  admire 
most,  your  patience  or  your  humility!" 


THE  AWAKENING  OF  MISS  GIRVAN 


Miss  Glrvan  sat  alone  in  her  blameless  drawing- 
room  (the  word  "parlor"  she  abominated)  and  no 
doubt  she  was  reading.  In  her  hand,  that  is  to 
say,  she  certainly  held  a  book,  and  she  was  not 
asleep;  her  eyes  were  on  the  page,  and  they  even 
followed  the  lines;  not  so  very  long  ago  she  had 
turned  a  leaf.  Perhaps  she  would  turn  another  pres- 
ently; nevertheless  she  was  scarcely  at  all  conscious 
of  what  her  author  was  telling  her,  and,  as  he  was 
a  quite  superior  writer,  he  must  have  known  Miss 
Girvan  never,  in  fact,  read  any  but  superior  books; 
though  I  cannot  honestly  say  that  she  was  at  heart 
a  literary  person.  She  was  well  enough  educated 
to  know  who  are  the  best  authors,  and  to  them  she 
was  determined  to  stick.  On  leaving  school,  in- 
deed, she  had  received  from  Miss  Selina  Porteous 
a  compendious  list  of  "safe"  authors,  with  a  sug- 
gestion that  she  would  do  well  to  follow  a  definite 
course  of  reading. 

"You,"  the  schoolmistress  had  said,  "will  have 
abundant  leisure.  Pray  do  not  be  contented  to  sup- 
pose your  education  now  complete.  Supplement  it 
for  yourself.  The  town  where  your  parents  now 
reside  is  not  large ;  its  situation  is  relatively  remote ; 
you  may  find  the  society  restricted:  accustom  your- 
self to  the  best  society,  which  you  will  find  in  the 
best  writers." 

I  protest  that  Miss  Selina  Porteous  was  not  a 
prig:  she  thought  of  EDUCATION  always  in  large 
capitals,  and  feared  that  in  large  capitals  too  many 
other  and  less  worthy  things   absorbed  the   public 

219 


220  THE  TIDEWAY 

interest:  and  she  was  from  top  to  toe  a  schoolmis- 
tress. But  she  was  not  stupid,  and  she  was  not 
without  some  cool  personal  interest  in  her  depart- 
ing pupil.  Carrie  Girvan  had  been  almost  a  model 
pupil,  not  brilliant,  but  painstaking,  obedient,  of 
good  principles,  anxious  to  learn  (if  only  she  knew 
what)  and  not  dull;  no,  not  even  dull,  though  her 
perceptions  were  less  industrious  than  herself,  and 
her  appreciations  seldom  alert. 

"Thank  you,  Miss  Porteous,"  the  girl  had  an- 
swered, "I  will  follow  your  kind  advice.  Pokestown 
is  a  small  place.  There  is,  I  should  say,  no  society 
there.  I  am  sorry  Mr.  Pentlow  and  Mamma  have 
chosen  to  make  it  their  home.  As  you  say,  the  situa- 
tion is  very  remote." 

As  to  the  last  indictment,  of  course  the  situation 
of  every  place  must  be  remote  from  many  others — 
it  depends  whence  you  start  measuring.  Miss  Por- 
teous and  her  departing  pupil  meant  that  Pokestown 
was  far  from  Boston — as  indeed  it  was — very  far. 

In  alluding  to  Mr.  Pentlow  and  her  Mamma, 
Carrie  had  meant  almost  to  correct  Miss  Porteous 
— to  go  as  near  to  correction  as  was  consistent  with 
sincere  deference:  for  Miss  Selina,  in  speaking  of 
"your  parents"  had  touched  upon  a  sore  point. 
Carrie  by  no  means  recognized  Mr.  Pentlow  as  a 
parent:  her  father  had  been  the  late  Mr.  Craigs- 
wood  Girvan — a  very  different  person.  Few  fami- 
lies in  Boston  had  had  a  tenderer  respect  for  their 
pedigree  than  the  Girvans :  it  was  not  in  the  least 
mythical,  and  after  a  century  of  separation,  the 
Girvans  of  Craigswood  in  Ayrshire  were  quite  alive 
to  the  honorable  existence  of  their  kinsfolk  in  New 
England.  Perhaps,  if  he  had  not  been  the  last  of 
them,  and  therefore  unaided  by  the  risk  of  adverse 
family  criticism  on  the  spot  (the  Laird's  family  in 
Scotland  might  be  supposed  to  be  hardly  alive  to 


THE  AWAKENING  OF  MISS  GIRVAN     221 

New  England  values),  Mr.  Cralgswood  Girvan 
might  never  have  been  guilty  of  falling  in  love  with 
the  undeniably  pretty  Caroline  Stevens,  who  had 
not  any  family  in  particular :  she  was  fifth  daughter 
of  a  Kentucky  farmer,  who,  if  he  wanted  a  pedigree, 
would  certainly  have  to  begin  it  in  his  own  person. 

In  her  heart  of  hearts  I  am  afraid  Carrie  did 
blame  her  father  for  his  only  marriage,  as  she  un- 
doubtedly blamed  her  mother  for  her  second. 

Carrie  hardly  remembered  him — he  had  been 
almost  an  old  man  when  he  married,  and  he  died 
when  she  herself  was  not  five  years  old.  But  she 
was  sure  that  she  remembered  him  to  have  been  very 
different  from  Mr.  Pentlow.  Mr.  Pentlow  was  far 
from  old,  nor  was  he  ugly — quite _  the  contrary: 
Carrie,  however,  held  his  good  looks  in  poor  esteem. 
They  were  common,  blatant,  like  his  voice  and  his 
obstreperous  geniality.  His  boisterous  cheerfulness 
struck  her  as  scarcely  less  common,  and  was  even 
more  blatant,  not  affected  but  spontaneous  and  un- 
justified by  circumstances  for  his  circumstances  were 
always  involved.  When  he  died  he  quite  radiantly 
declared  that  it  was  a  Providential  interposition 
to  save  him  from  bankruptcy.  If,  he  asserted  (and 
poor  Carrie  had  some  reason  to  believe  him)  he 
was  to  live  another  three  years  he  would  be  bank- 
rupt, sure  enough.  Carrie  had  helped  to  avert  that 
stroke  on  repeated  occasions.  Her  own  fortune  had 
been  materially  diminished  by  that  help.  And  she 
had  trenched  on  it  also  for  the  education  of  her 
half-sisters  and  half-brothers:  and,  as  each  of  the 
three  went  out  in  the  world,  Carrie  had  opened  her 
purse  generously  enough.  What  she  had  less  gener- 
ously loosened  were  the  strings  of  her  heart.  She 
had  a  dutiful  and  quite  genuine  fondness  for  her 
mother  (though  if  she  could  have  chosen  her,  that 
mother  would  have  been  a  wholly  different  sort  of 


222  THE  TIDEWAY 

person).  She  had  never  been  nasty  to  her  step- 
father, whom  she  had  thought  nasty,  which  he  was 
not;  and  he  had  innocently  imagined  that  she  was 
fond  of  him  in  her  way:  but  that  was  one  of  his 
many  sanguine  mistakes.  In  any  relation  of  life  she 
would  have  thought  him  intolerable;  as  her  step- 
father the  whole  idea  of  him  set  her  teeth  on  edge, 
and  it  was  really  to  her  credit  that  even  he,  with  all 
his  coarsegrained  easy-goingness,  had  never  been 
forced  to  realize  her  dislike. 

As  to  Ben,  Susie,  and  Lizzie,  they  were  so  like  him 
that  it  was  hardly  surprising  she  should  have  thought 
of  them  chiefly  as  being  his  children,  three  super- 
fluous commemorations  of  her  mother's  unpardon- 
able second  marriage. 

II 

Miss  Girvan  sat,  as  has  been  remarked,  in  her 
drawing-room  alone.  And  alone  in  it  she  spent 
a  very  large  proportion  of  her  time. 

It  was  in  a  peculiar  sense  her  own  room ;  the 
whole  house  belonged  to  her,  had  been  bought  by 
herself  with  her  own  money  very  soon  after  Mr. 
Pentlow's  death;  and  it  need  hardly  be  said  that  it 
was  not  in  the  abhorred  Pokestown.  But,  to  do  her 
justice,  Carrie  never  spoke  of  the  house  as  hers. 
She  never  even  alluded  to  "my  drawing-room."  It 
was  simply  "the  drawing-room."  Still,  this  was 
entirely  her  room.  Her  books  were  there,  which 
she  read  with  conscientious  if  laborious  persistence; 
her  piano  was  there,  upon  which  she  had  long  ceased 
to  play — Miss  Porteous  had  said  nothing  about  the 
duty  of  continuing  her  "music,"  perhaps  not  entirely 
through  forgetfulness,  but  partly  because  she  was 
fully  aware  how  little  the  girl  cared  for  music.  Her 
papa's  portrait  hung  there,  and  the  large  old  print 


THE  APFAKENING  OF  MISS  GIRVAN     223 

of  "Craigswood  Castle,  Ayrshire,  Seat  of  Alexander 
Girvan  of  that  Ilk,"  with  the  engraved  escutcheon 
of  the  Girvans  between  the  words  "Craigswood" 
and  "Castle."  The  seats  of  the  chairs  were  covered 
with  tapestry-work  wrought  by  her  own  hands,  one 
at  school,  the  others — to  match — since. 

When  indoors,  which  she  mostly  was,  Carrie 
always  sat  in  her  drawing-room;  Mrs.  Pentlow  never 
did,  except  when  she  came  in  there  to  drink  her 
tea,  after  which  she  returned  to  the  breakfast-room. 
The  breakfast-room  looked  "up  street,"  and  the 
old  lady  liked  to  note  what  went  forward  outside. 
Miss  Girvan  never  looked  into  the  street;  her 
bedroom  peered  out  over  a  lawn  on  which  no  one 
ever  played  any  game,  and  the  drawing-room  was 
on  the  ground  floor  beneath  it.  The  view  from  the 
lower  room  was  even  less  exhilarating,  for  the  ever- 
green hedge  at  the  end  of  the  lawn  was  high  enough 
to  shut  out  the  shaggy  paddock, visible  from  upstairs, 
in  which  Miss  Girvan's  pony  supported  as  best  he 
could  a  life  of  forlorn  uselessness  (for  Miss  Girvan 
rarely  drove  out)  and  dismal  seclusion.  If,  as  is 
unlikely,  his  mistress  ever  adverted  to  that  seclu- 
sion she  would  not  have  pitied  him,  he  was  not  much 
more  secluded  than  herself,  and,  idle  she  was,  she 
never  wallowed  in  self-pity.  She  took  her  own  seclu- 
sion for  granted  as  the  lot  of  a  woman  whom  no  one 
had  married,  and  unconscious  of  any  neighbors 
whose  intimacy  she  could  support. 

Was  Miss  Girvan  at  this  period  an  old  maid? 
She  was  under  thirty  by  as  many  years  as  she  had 
unexpectant,  not  inexpressive  eyes.  What  did  those 
two  darkish  brown  eyes,  a  little  darker  than  her 
abundant  and  certainly  pretty  hair,  express?  Alas, 
most  noticeably,  the  absence  of  expectancy. 

They  were  far  from  being  bad  eyes.  They  were 
not  small  nor  mean,  nor  cold,  though  cool ;  they  were 


224  THE  TIDEWAY 

Incapable  of  malice,  or  unkindness.  A  little  prim, 
possibly,  as  was  the  neat,  though  not  too  small 
mouth;  but  not  hard,  nor  suspicious;  not  calculating, 
nor  superstitious,  nor  conceited.  One's  eyes  express, 
not  one's  ancestors,  but  oneself;  and,  if  this  lovely 
lady  was  silently  vain  of  her  pedigree,  she  was 
wholly  free  from  any  vanity  on  her  own  account. 
Of  herself  she  thought  meekly;  so  meekly  that  it 
never  had  caused  her  the  least  surprise  that  no  one 
had  ever  betrayed  the  least  wish  to  marry  her. 
Her  stepsisters  had  found  admirers  even  at  school, 
to  the  great  annoyance  of  their  schoolmistress,  and 
had  both  married  very  young — Carrie  providing 
the  wedding  clothes,  and  wedding  feasts,  and  some 
moderate  dowry  for  each,  as  well.  Yet,  in  spite  of 
the  sort  of  good  looks  they  Inherited  from  their 
father,  Carrie  herself  was  far  more  really  pretty; 
and  If  men  had  all  good  taste — but  It  Is  probable  the 
young  men  who  married  Susie  and  LIzz  had  not  good 
taste.  Carrie's  figure  was  pretty,  and  would  never 
grow  coarse;  her  hands  and  feet  were  small  and 
excellently  shaped,  her  ears  were  dainty,  and  she 
had  a  good  skin  and  a  singularly  good  nose. 

Yet  no  one  had  ever  asked  her  to  marry,  and  she 
was  sure  no  one  had  ever  dreamt  of  it. 

After  all  It  is  expression  which  matters  most,  and 
the  expression  of  Miss  Girvan's  quite  pretty  face 
did  nothing  much  for  it.  Anyone  could  see  that 
she  was  harmless,  really  a  lady,  Inacapable  of  any- 
thing mean  or  unworthy.  But  not  much  beside.  Was 
she.  In  fact,  simply  insignificant? 

Rising  from  her  seat  to  stir  the  fire,  she  laid 
her  book  open  on  the  table,  and  said: 

"I  try  to  read  It.  But  can't  get  on.  Is  it  because 
there  is  nothing  in  the  book,  or  because  there  Is  noth- 
ing In  me?"  Then  pausing  with  the  poker  in  the 
fire,  "No  one  has  ever  tried  to  read  me — because 


THE  AWAKENING  OF  MISS  GIRVAN     225 

there  is  nothing  in  me.  In  my  book,  the  book  of  me, 
there  are  eight  and  twenty  chapters  already,  and 
nothing  in  any  of  them.  I  don't  see  what  there 
can  be  on  the  others.  Well,  it's  better  to  be  blank 
than  blotched.  God  has  kept  the  blotches  away,  if  I 
have  provided  only  the  blanks." 

She  still  held  the  poker,  and  still  looked  down  into 
the  fire,  which  had  rewarded  her  touch  by  a  little 
blaze.  It  cast  a  not  unflattering  glow  upon  her  bent 
face,  always  rather  pale;  and  the  dancing  flicker 
reflected  in  her  eyes  a  movement  and  comfortable 
glimmer  that  helped  them  also;  for  they  were  of 
themselves  too  immobile. 

"Twenty-eight  chapters!  If  there  are  to  be  sev- 
enty or  eighty  it  will  be  rather  a  heavy  book  to 
hold." 

She  put  the  poker  back  in  its  place,  neatly  (as  she 
did  everything)  and  returned  to  her  chair.  It  was 
perhaps  too  comfortable  a  chair;  she,  perhaps,  had 
grown  too  much  used  to  all  such  comfortable  things, 
to  rely  on  them,  as  it  were,  and  pad  out  her  meager 
life  with  them  if  not  consciously  at  least  deliberately. 
That  drawing-room  of  hers  was  a  blank  dull  sort  of 
room;  correct,  blameless,  but  expressionless.  It 
made  no  hospitable  suggestion,  and  you  could  not 
imagine  any  cheerful  company  crowded  into  it — 
Miss  Girvan  would  have  hated  to  see  it  crowded. 
But  it  was  full  of  physical  comfort.  The  carpet  of 
a  drabbish  neutral  tint,  was  very  soft  and  very 
thick, and  ran  up  to  the  wall  everywhere,  and  into 
every  corner.  The  rug  before  the  fire  was  of  a  rather 
expensive  white  fur  and  very  "deep"  and  warm. 
The  wide  French  window  had  been  (by  oft-repeated 
visits  of  an  intelligent  carpenter)  made  to  fit  exactly 
and  exclude  all  draughts,  as  had  the  door.  The  cur- 
tains were  of  a  soft  velvety  texture,  and  very  ample, 
so  as  to  draw  quite  close  after  day-fall.     The  risk 


2  26  THE  TIDEWAY 

of  any  draught  from  under  the  door  was  guarded 
against  by  a  screen,  not  ugly,  but  a  little  blank,  for 
it  had  four  tall  and  wide  folds  covered  with  a  very 
pale  gray  damasked  silk,  closely  resembling  the  wall 
paper. 

The  whole  house  was  comfortable,  noiseless 
and  staid:  and  Miss  Girvan  kept  a  good  table,  and 
drank  a  little  good  wine  with  her  slow  unhurried 
meals.  In  spite  of  the  inroads  on  her  fortune  made 
by  the  late,  though  unlamented,  stepfather,  and  by 
her  assistance  of  his  children.  Miss  Girvan  was  by 
no  means  poor,  and  all  the  expenses  of  her  house 
were  borne  by  herself.  Mr.  Pentlow  had  lived  long 
enough  to  spend  all  his  wife's  money. 

It  must  not  be  supposed  that  Carrie  spent  hers 
only  upon  herself;  she  still  sent  substantial  help 
to  her  married  sisters,  whose  families  increased 
more  rapidly  than  their  husbands'  incomes :  her 
mother  had  excellent  clothes  and  was  never  without 
a  comfortable  lining  to  her  purse:  and  Miss  Girvan 
gave  considerably  in  charity — it  was  indeed  her 
principle  to  devote  a  tithe  of  her  income  to  charity, 
in  which  she  did  not  count  generosity  to  her  sisters. 
What  she  devoted  to  "charity"  was  mostly  placed 
at  the  disposal  of  her  minister  (the  Girvans  had 
always  been  Presbyterian)  and  she  was  glad  that 
he  should  spend  it  without  much  reference  to  herself. 
From  any  personal  contact  with  the  poor  she  shrank, 
as  she  shrank  from  bleak  weather  and  books  with 
any  crude  appeal  to  the  emotions. 

Miss  Girvan,  I  say,  resumed  her  place  In  her 
deep  and  soft  chair,  and  drew  it  slightly  nearer  to 
the  fire.  Having  adjusted  a  plump  cushion  to  a 
more  exactly  comfortable  position  behind  the  nape 
of  her  neck,  she  resigned  herself  with  some  com- 
placence to  the  enjoyment  of  her  material  advan- 
tages. 


THE  AWAKENING  OF  MISS  GIRVAN     227 

"No,"  she  thought,  "the  Book  of  Me  will  not  be 
worth  reading,  but — I  hate  tragedy.  It  won't  be 
awful." 

The  rain  smacked  against  the  large  plate  glass  of 
her  window,  and  one  could  hear  a  rattling  wind  out- 
side, but  it  did  not  moan  in  the  window  (it  used  to, 
but  Carrie  had  had  that  corrected)  nor  in  the  chim- 
ney. 

"Pussy,"  she  said,  "you  like  to  be  warm  as  well 
as  I  do.  You  have  an  excellent  home,  and  you  would 
turn  up  your  nose  at  a  mouse,  wouldn't  you?" 

Miss  Girvan  did  not  care  much  for  animals,  but 
she  liked  to  see  a  cat  on  the  rug  before  the  fire. 
It  brought  out  the  flavor  of  her  own  comfort,  as 
warmth  brings  out  the  bouquet  of  some  wines.  The 
worst  of  Pussy  was  her  occasional  indiscretion  in 
having  kittens,  which  her  mistress  thought  to  be  a 
slightly  indecorous  weakness :  however,  they  were 
soon  drowned,  and  neither  their  mother  nor  Miss 
Girvan  thought  much  more  about  them. 

"It's  a  thoroughly  disagreeable  day,"  said  Carrie, 
"that  is  the  best  of  having  nothing  to  make  me  go 
out  when  I  do  not  wish  to." 

She  let  her  eyes  wander  round  the  room  and  said: 

"I  don't  see  what's  the  matter  with  it — it's  a  quiet 
plain  room,  and  not  uncomfortable.  I'm  sure  noth- 
ing shocking  ever  happened  in  it — I  suppose  it's  un- 
interesting, but  they  say  rooms  reflect  their  owners. 
I'm  not  interesting,"  she  paused  and  added — "thank 
God.  For  they  say  the  annals  of  the  untroubled 
are  dull."  She  remembered  that  several  of  her 
school-fellows  had  had,  since  those  calm  school- 
days, troublous  lives  enough. 

"Poor  Mary  Findlater,"  she  thought,  "there  was 
a  romance,  but  what  a  tragic  one !  And  Esther 
Purchar — a  story  for  a  novel,  but  not  the  sort  of 
novel  I  would  willingly  read.    I  like  happy  endings: 


228  THE  TIDEWAY 

not  only  a  wedding  but  an  income  too.  No,  I  would 
rather  sit  here  alone,  by  this  warm  hearth,  and  hear 
the  wet  wind  outside,  than  have  to  know  there  were 
chapters  like  theirs  in  my  dull  book.  Even  Susie  and 
Lizzie  have  worries  enough,  and  Ben's  scrapes  would 
be  almost  tragic  if  they  weren't  so  vulgar." 

Ill 

"Please,  Miss  Girvan,"  said  the  Irish  house- 
maid closing  the  door  behind  her  and  advancing 
nearer,  to  speak  more  confidentially,  "there's  two 
ladies  in  the  hall,  and  they  would  like  to  see  you. 
Shall  I  show  them  in?" 

The  Irish  servant  girl  was  only  temporary.  Miss 
Girvan's  parlor  maid  was  a  staid,  and  not  very 
young  spinster  from  Massachusetts,  who  dated 
from  the  purchase  of  the  house.  But  she  had  gone 
home  to  nurse  a  dying  mother,  and  Norah  was  her 
locum  tenens. 

"Two  ladies?     What  ladies?" 

"Well,  Miss,  they're  sisters." 

"Not  the  two  Miss  Blitters !"  (Carrie  detested 
the  Miss  Blitters.) 

"Well,  Miss,  I  should  think  not.  I  don't  think 
they're  sisters  to  one  another.  They're  Sisters  of 
the  Holy  House.      Nuns,  Miss." 

Miss  Girvan  was  quite  unbigoted.  She  had  no 
animosity  against  nuns;  only  she  had  never  met  any. 

"And  you  said  I  was  at  home?" 

"Ma'am,  I  said  I  thought  perhaps  you  were  en- 
gaged." 

The  rain  slapped  at  the  window  and  the  wind 
clattered  among  the  boughs  of  the  trees  outside — 
and  Carrie  was  anything  but  hard  or  ill-natured. 

"Bring  them  in,  Norah.  And  bring  tea  as  soon 
as  you  have  it  ready." 

One  of  the  Sisters  proved  to  be  quite  young,  and 


THE  AWAKENING  OF  MISS  GIRI^AN     229 

the  other  might  be  forty.  They  were  both  rather 
damp.  The  elder  did  the  talking,  at  first,  and  the 
younger  looked  at  the  floor. 

"Miss  Girvan,"  Sister  Philippine  began,  "we 
know  you  are  not  a  Catholic.  But  we  have  heard 
that  you  are  generous,  and  we  have  come  begging. 
We  go  everywhere.  Very  few  are  cross  with  us  for 
troubling  them.  It  is  for  our  old  folks  and  our  little 
ones.  We  have  lately  opened  a  house  here — about 
a  year  ago,  and  it's  full  already,  forty-two  old  men 
and  women,  childless  you  know  and  helpless;  and 
nineteen  little  things,  nearly  babies  some  of  them — 
orphans," 

"I'm  fraid  you're  very  wet,"  said  Miss  Girvan. 

"Oh,  no.  We  have  fine  big  umbrellas,  almost  like 
gig-umbrellas.  A  wet  day  is  rather  good  for  us,  we 
find  more  people  in,  and  that's  everything." 

"I  should  hate  paddling  round  in  the  rain,"  said 
Carrie  with  perfect  truth.  "/  certainly  am  not  cross 
at  your  troubling  me — it  only  troubles  me  to  see  you 
so  uncomfortable.  It's  such  a  contrast — "  and  she 
glanced  at  herself,  and  at  Pussy,  and  round  the  warm 
dry  room. 

"Ah,"  cried  the  Sister  genially,  and  without  the 
faintest  ironic  intention,  "that's  altogether  different! 
It  suits  you  to  be  comfortable.  And  why  not?  All 
your  comforts  come  from  God." 

The  younger  sister  gave  an  almost  imperceptible 
nod  as  much  as  to  say,  "There's  no  doubt  of  that." 

"Anyway,"  said  Carrie,  "I  shall  be  very  glad  in- 
deed to  help.  I  daresay  you  won't  think  it  much — I 
don't  know  in  the  least  what  people  usually  give 
you.     ..." 

"Oh!  nothing,  sometimes;  sometimes  enough  to 
feed  all  our  old  folks  and  all  our  children  for  a  day." 

"And  how  much  would  feed  them  all  for  a  day?" 

Sister  Philippine  told  her,  and  it  seemed  to  Car- 


230  THE  TIDEIVAY 

rie  terribly  little.  She  knew  to  a  penny  what  her 
own  housekeeping  cost,  and  it  had  never  struck  her 
as  extravagant. 

*'Well,"  she  said,  "and  there  are  yourselves. 
The  nuns  themselves,  I  mean.  How  many  of  them 
are  there?" 

"We  are  sixteen  In  community." 

"Well,  and  you  must  eat!" 

"Certainly,"  laughed  Sister  Philippine,  "we  eat 
— what  the  old  folk  and  the  children  leave." 

Carrie  shuddered.  "Look  here,"  she  said,  "I  will 
give  you  $200 — ^but  I  should  like  to  make  a  condi- 
tion." 

At  the  mention  of  so  generous  a  sum,  both  sisters 
made  a  little  exclamation,  and  the  young  one  looked 
up  from  the  floor.  When  Carrie  spoke  of  a  condi- 
tion they  tried  not  to  seem  disappointed. 

"What  condition,  please?"  asked  Sister  Philip- 
pine. 

"That  you  go  straight  home  and  beg  no  more  to- 
day," said  Carrie  promptly. 

"Then  I'll  promise,"  declared  Sister  Philippine, 
and  they  both  laughed. 

Carrie  saw  there  was  a  little  joke  and  asked 
what  it  was. 

"Well,  the  truth  is  our  rounds  are  over  for  to-day. 
It  is  nearly  five  o'clock  and  we  generally  do  our 
begging  between  nine  in  the  morning  and  five  In  the 
afternoon.  This  was  to  be  the  last  house.  Per- 
haps you  will  not  give  us  so  much  now." 

"Oh  yes,  I  shall." 

And  Carrie  went  over  to  her  bureau  whence  she 
returned  with  the  money. 

"There's  $202,"  she  said.  "The  two  dollars 
are  for  a  cab.  Your  convent  is  quite  at  the  other 
end  of  the  town,  is  it  not?  It  Is  pouring.  I  want 
you  to  go  home  in  a  cab." 


THE  AWAKENING  OF  MISS  GIRVAN     231 

She  spoke  with  far  more  animation  than  was  her 
custom,  for  it  was  seldom  her  custom,  poor  girl, 
to  be  interested,  and  she  was  interested  now.  Not, 
1  fear,  chiefly  in  the  old  men  and  women  and  or- 
phans, but  in  the  two  gentle  ladies  who  were  begging 
for  them.  Her  eagerness  brought  a  slight  but  most 
becoming  flush  into  her  pale  cheeks,  and  her  quiet 
brown  eyes  had  an  unwonted  light  in  them. 

"Your  condition,"  said  Sister  Philippine,  with  a 
little  laugh,  "was  that  we  should  go  home — " 

"In  a  cab !"  declared  Carrie  firmly. 

"I  didn't  hear  that,"  said  Sister  Philippine. 

"Nor  I,"  said  Sister  Angela. 

"Come!"  cried  Miss  Girvan,  "is  it  worth  while  to 
lose  two  hundred  dollars  for  your  old  creatures  just 
for  the  sake  of  getting  more  thoroughly  wet?  That 
would  be  obstinate!" 

"I  think  it  would." 

And  both  sisters  laughed  quite  comfortably. 

"What  a  pretty  creature  you  are!"  said  Carrie 
impulsively  (she  was  far  from  being  impulsive  in 
general),  and  as  if  she  couldn't  help  it,  to  Sister 
Angela. 

"Oh,  dear!"  said  Sister  Philippine,  "Nuns  and 
compliments  are  queer  company." 

But  she  did  not  speak  severely. 

"Come,"  cried  Carrie,  "if  she  is  pretty,  it's  no 
riiore  her  fault  than  my  comforts  are  mine.  My  com- 
forts and  her  looks  come  from  the  same  place." 

She  spoke  so  genially,  and  looked  so  girlish  that 
Sister  Philippine  felt  quite  at  home  with  her.  When 
they  had  first  entered  the  room  she  had  inwardly 
decided  that  Miss  Girvan  was  a  stiffish  personage, 
and  had  put  her  down  for  well  over  thirty. 

"Dear  me,"  laughed  Sister  Philippine,  "you  can 
be  quite  saucy!" 

Undoubtedly   it  was   the   first  time   anyone   had 


232  THE  TIDEWAY 

called  Miss  Girvan  saucy.  If  Mrs.  Pentlow  had 
heard  it  she  would  have  been  almost  frightened. 
But  Carrie  rather  liked  it,  without  exactly  knowing 
why.  The  stout  nun  was  so  human;  she  seemed 
to  give  out  a  kind  of  warmth  and  wholesomeness 
like  an  atmosphere.  People  usually  accorded  to 
Miss  Girvan  a  sort  of  matronly  position,  as  if  she 
were  almost  elderly,  and  this  Sister  treated  her  as  a 
young  girl. 

"How  old  do  you  think  I  am?"  she  demanded 
abruptly. 

"Oh — well,  three  or  four  and  twenty,  perhaps. 
No,  less,  I  should  say." 

"I'm  twenty-eight." 

"That's  young,  too.  And — do  you  live  all 
alone  .  .  .  here?  It's  a  fine  room,  but,  but,  some- 
how, elderly." 

"Yes,  I  live  all  alone  here.  And  it  is  elderly. 
That's  exactly  what  it  is.     I  can't  help  it." 

As  she  spoke,  in  a  queer,  almost  flurried  fashion, 
the  younger  nun  caught  her  eye  and  Carrie  found  it 
very  sympathetic. 

"Won't  yoii  say  something?"  she  said.  "You've 
hardly  spoken  to  me." 

"I  was  thinking,"  the  nun  answered,  with  a  gentle 
hesitation,  "that  I  would  rather  live  among  our  old 
broken-down  creatures  and  our  little  orphans." 

At  that  moment  Norah  entered  with  a  tray — a 
very  heavy  silver  tray,  laden  with  heavy  silver  tea- 
pot, cream  ewer,  and  sugar  bowl. 

"How  long  you've  been,  Norah!"  said  her  mis- 
tress, please  bring  in  the  other  things  quickly." 

Then  turning  to  her  guests  she  said: 

"After  your  ploddings  through  the  rain  a  cup  of 
tea  will  do  you  good." 

They  explained  that  they  never  ate  or  drank  out 
of  the  convent,  but  thanked  her  with  hearty  good- 


THE  AWAKENING  OF  MISS  GIRVAN     233 

will.  Her  obvious  disappointment  was  very  hos- 
pitable. 

"But,"  said  Sister  Philippine,  "if  you  will  come 
to  our  Convent  we  should  love  to  give  you  tea." 

"Do,"  begged  Sister  Angela. 

IV 

When  Mrs.  Pentlow  came  to  the  drawing-room 
for  her  tea,  she  immediately  became  conscious  of  a 
change  in  its  atmosphere. 

"Your  visitors  didn't  stop,"  she  observed,  glanc- 
ing at  the  two  extra  and  unused  tea-cups. 

"No,  Mamma !  and  I  was  so  sorry.  But  they 
weren't  exactly  visitors.     They  were  beggars!" 

"Beggars,  my  dear?" 

"Clean  beggars;  and  very  nice." 

Then  she  explained. 
^  "Well,   I'm  sure  I'm  glad  they  came.     They've 
done  you  good,"  declared  her  mother. 

"How?"  asked  Carrie,  not  austerely. 

"You  look  ten  years  younger — you  do,  indeed. 
And  ever  so  much  prettier.  That's  the  truth,  my 
dear." 

"Mamma,  you  know  I'm  not  pretty." 

"Just  you  look  in  the  glass." 

Carrie  laughed  and  did  look, 

"Perhaps  I  don't  look  so  frumpish  as  usual,"  she 
admitted. 

"You  aren't  a  frump  a  bit;  only  you  live  as  if  you 
were.  You  live  as  if  you  were  an  elderly  person. 
Don't  bite  me  for  saying  so,  but  it's  the  truth.  I 
wish  those  begging  ladies  would  come  every  day. 
I  never  saw  such  a  difference." 

Mrs.  Pentlow  was  quite  astonished  to  hear  her- 
self talking  like  this.  It  was  due  to  the  change  in 
the  atmosphere  of  the  drawing-room. 

"They  do  a  deal  of  good,  those  ladies,"  she  ob- 


234  THE  TIDEWAY 

served  presently.  "I've  heard  a  many  praise  them. 
I  wish  I'd  seen  them." 

"One  of  them,"  cried  Carrie,  "said  I  was  saucy." 

Her  mother  swallowed  quite  a  large  bit  of  toast 
prematurely. 

"My  shakes!"  she  ejaculated. 

When  Norah  came  to  take  the  tea-things  away 
Mrs.  Pentlow  arose  in  accordance  with  her  custom 
to  return  to  the  breakfast-room. 

"Stop  and  talk,"  her  daughter  begged.  "I  want 
to  talk.  You've  got  your  knitting,  and  we  can  keep 
blind  man's  holiday." 

Mrs.  Pentlow  did  not  say  "My  shakes!"  this 
time,  but  she  felt  it.  Never  before  since  they  had 
lived  in  that  house  had  Carrie  given  the  slightest 
hint  of  a  desire  not  to  be  left  alone  when  her  mother 
had  shaken  out  the  crumbs  (into  the  fender,  and 
with  due  respect  to  the  drawing-room  carpet)  and 
prepared  to  withdraw,  as  soon  as  tea  was  over, 
to  her  own  region. 

When  Norah  had  gone  Carrie  sat  for  a  few  min- 
utes looking  into  the  fire  without  speaking,  and  her 
mother  knitted,  equally  silent. 

"Mamma,"  the  girl  said  presently,  without  turn- 
ing her  eyes  from  the  fire,  "I  suppose  you  can  read 
while  you  knit.  You  never  need  to  look  at  the  knit- 
ting." 

"Oh,  yes,  I  can  read,  easy,  as  I  knit — by  propping 
the  book  up  on  the  table.  But  I  don't  do  it  very 
often.      I  don't  study  like  you." 

Carrie  had  a  half-guilty  consciousness  that  this 
was  a  very  fine  name  for  her  somewhat  torpid 
reading. 

*'Well,"  she  said,  "I  suppose  you  prefer  your  own 
thoughts." 

"I  don't  know  as  I'm  very  fond  of  them,  either. 
While  it's  daylight  I  look  out  of  the  window  and  see 


THE  AJFAKENING  OF  MISS  GIRVAN     235 

what  folks  go  by,  and  that.  When  it's  dark  and  the 
house  is  shut  up,  I  have  my  chair  turned  round  and 
I  knit  by  the  fire.  That's  company.  I  can't  truly 
say  that  it's  exactly  thoughts  I  prefer  to  reading." 

Poor  Mrs.  Pentlow,  she  was  not  plucky  enough 
to  confess  that  she  had  a  good  deal  more  conversa- 
tion than  she  now  hinted  at.  When  the  servant 
came  with  the  lamp,  and  when  she  would  come  in 
afterwards  to  attend  to  the  fire,  or  on  that  pretence, 
her  mistress  would  seldom  let  her  go  without  a 
fairly  prolonged  chat.  The  cook  was  breakfast- 
room  maid.  As  the  more  austere  Selina  was  draw- 
ing-room maid  I  am  afraid  Mrs.  Pentlow  and  the 
cook  gossiped,  though  harmlessly.  And  Carrie's 
mother  was  fully  conscious  that  gossip  with  a  ser- 
vant could  find  no  favor  in  her  daughter's  ideas  of 
correctness. 

"Mamma,"  said  the  girl,  and  she  spoke  with  a 
certain  impulsiveness  that  her  mother  was  not  accus- 
tomed to  see  in  her,  "Mamma,  it  all  sounds  rather 
—lonely." 

The  tone  was  so  obviously  self-accusatory  that 
Mrs.  Pentlow,  who  was  entirely  good-natured  and 
easy-tempered,  said: 

"Well,  my  dear,  I  don't  know  as  I  often  feel  it 
like  that.  When  a  woman's  getting  up  In  years,  and 
has  three  children's  worries  and  scrapes  to  think 
about,  and  a  comfortable  home  of  her  own  to  think 
about  them  in — if  she's  any  sense,  she  don't  get 
wondering  if  she's  lonesome.  I  should  say  you'd 
be  more  like  to  feel  lonesome  all  by  yourself  in 
here."  (Mrs.  Pentlow  was  quite  aware  that  Carrie 
had  no  such  resources  in  Selina  as  she  had  in 
Jemima.)  "Though,  of  course,  there's  your  studies. 
What  I  mean  is,  you're  young,  and  yet  you  never  let 
any  young  folks'  pleasures  come  anigh  you.  And 
you  sit  here  forever,  just  as  a  woman  might,  thirty 


236  THE  TIDEWAY 

years  older  than  you  are,  who'd  never  married." 

For  a  little  while  Carrie  seemed  to  sit  musing 
what  her  mother  had  said.  It  was  true  enough  and 
good  enough  sense.  And  she  was  quite  sufficiently 
intelligent  to  perceive  that  it  expressed  an  habitual 
thought — Mrs.  Pentlow  was  not  the  woman  to  put 
out  in  pat  phrases  all  at  once  a  new  idea  that  had 
only  just  arrived. 

"Mother,"  she  said,  with  a  little  blush,  at  last, 
"what  does  it  matter  whether  I  begin  now  or  in  thirty 
years  to  live  — like  that?  You  know  I  shan't  ever  be 
married." 

I  fear  Mrs.  Pentlow  had  even  discussed  this  very 
subject*  with  the  cheery  cook — who  was  about  Car- 
rie's age,  and  had,  at  least,  two  strings  to  her  own 
bow. 

"And  why  not,  my  dear?  See  how  quick  Lizzie 
and  Susie  went  off.  And  not  half  your  looks — no, 
my  dear,  they  hadn't.  They  were  pretty  enough" 
(she  was  still  a  pretty  old  woman  herself),  "but 
they  hadn't  your  looks.  None  of  your  style."  Car- 
rie winced  at  that  appalling  word.  "They're  my 
own  gals,  but  I  know  as  well  they're  a  different 
class !  Yes,  and  I  know  what  you're  thinking — their 
husbands  would  never  do  for  you.  So  they  wouldn't. 
But  there's  plenty  of  young  men  in  the  world  as  are 
your  class.  There's  nought  to  hinder,  only  your 
living  shut  up  in  this  room  like  a  hermitess,  if  there's 
such  a  thing.  A  young  man  can't  exactly  knock  at 
the  front  door  and  say  to  Selina,  'I'll  just  step  in  the 
drawing-room  and  propose  to  your  young  lady. 
Can  he  now?" 

"Oh,  Mamma,  I  don't  want  any  young  man  to 
step  in!"  cried  Carrie  really  blushing.  There  was 
much  common  sense  in  what  her  mother  said,  but 
(plainly)  it  seemed  to  her  vulgar.  Yet,  she  knew 
that  it  was  all  said  with  so  simple  a  frankness  that 


THE  AWAKENING  OE  MISS  GIRVAN     237 

somehow    it    failed    of    the    real    essence    of    vul- 
garity. 

"No,  you  don't.  There  it  is,"  said  Mrs.  Pentlow. 
She  shook  her  head  and  that  head-shake  was  elo- 
quent. "There's  the  obstacle,"  it  declared  roundly, 
"and  it's  one  that  no  one  can  climb  over." 

"But,  mother!  Why  should  everyone  marry? 
Lizzie  and  Susie  have  trouble  enough;  and,  of  my 
old  schoolfriends,  half  who  have  got  married  have 
had  far,  far  worse  troubles  than  theirs." 

"Troubles!  What  does  a  trouble  or  two  matter? 
Don't  it  say  as  we're  born  to  'em  as  the  sparks  fly 
upwards?  And  it's  better  to  share  them  than  sit 
chewing  them  by  yourself.  I'd  troubles  enough 
with  your  stepfather  (he  and  me  together  had)  but 
I  never  repented  marrying  him,  for  I  was  fond  of 
him  and  he  of  me.  I  know  you  couldn't  bear  the 
sight  of  him,  though  he  didn't  see  it — and  it  wasn't 
for  me  to  tell  him.  He  hadn't  much  head  to  speak 
of,  and  no  manners  (not  what  you'd  call  manners. 
Well,  I  know  they  were  common),  but  his  heart 
wasn't  common;  and,  Carrie,  I'd  liever  sit  by  my 
fire  and  remember  it  than — study.  And  I'd  liever 
have  Liz  and  Sue  married  to  men  as  thinks  the  world 
of  'em,  and  have  children  at  their  breasts  (troubles 
or  no  troubles)  than  have  them  sit  alone  with  naught 
but  a  book  betwixt  them  and  the  thought  that  there 
Avas  nothing  but  the  next  meal  to  look  on  to,  and 
be  lonely  night  after  night,  and  a  long  day  to  follow, 
and  so  on  with  all  the  nights  and  days,  and  nothing 
to  expect,  nothin.  Eh,  my  dear!  I'm  sure  I  thank 
the  Lord  (and  you)  for  all  the  comforts  I  have. 
And  more  I  thank  Him  that  you  aren't  dependent 
on  anyone,  nor  poor.  (Struggles  'd  never  do  for 
you,  my  dear.  And  He  spares  them  to  you.)  But 
often  when  I  kneel  at  nights  I  can't  help  asking  Him 
if  that's  all  He  can  send — 'just  a  little  happiness. 


238  THE   TIDEWAY 

too,  O  Lord,'  I  call  out;  not  out  loud,  but  in  my  silly 
old  heart." 

A  very  sharp  stab  of  compunction  assailed  Carrie. 
Just  now  she  had  noted  very  shrewdly,  though 
silently,  that  her  mother  had  spoken  of  three  chil- 
dren; as  If  Ben  and  Susie  and  Lizzie  were  all  the 
children  she  had.  And,  hurt,  she  had  confessed  that 
it  was  not  strange  or  unjust;  they  were  loudly  demon- 
strative In  their  affection  for  their  mother,  and  what 
was  she?  Because  their  noisy  kisslngs,  and  inoppor- 
tune embracings  struck  her  as  "common"  she  had 
made  of  a  cool  evenness  of  demeanor,  and  absence 
of  all  effusion  a  point  of  breeding.  And  now  came 
this  poignant  revelation  of  a  simple,  but  loving, 
mother  kneeling  at  night  In  the  decorous  comfort 
of  her  lonely  bedchamber,  and  crying  out  to  Heaven 
for  happiness  for  the  daughter  who  had  always 
kept  her  at  arm's  length. 

The  girl's  really  pretty  face  was  held  between  her 
two  long  and  shapely  hands  as  she  bent  her  eyes 
on  the  fire,  and  her  mother  saw  shining  tears  slowly 
form  in  those  eyes,  and  slowly  break  from  them. 

"Oh,  my  dear;"  cried  the  old  lady.  "Oh  Car- 
rie!" 

"I'm  a  wicked  girl." 

"Wicked!  Because  you've  never  been  a  husband 
catcher,  like  most !  Eh,  my  dear !  I've  always  been 
proud  of  it.  Sue  and  Liz  led  their  young  fellows 
on — didn't  I  know  it?  They'd  have  got  married 
right  enough,  without  it,  I'll  be  bound :  still  I  know 
they  led  their  young  fellows  on :  they  were  in  a 
hurry  like — Sue  and  Liz  were.  And  for  that  matter 
it  was  In  their  blood.     I  was  just  the  same." 

"Oh,  Mamma,  please  don't." 

"Yes,  but  I  was.  I  don't  know  as  poor  Pentlow 
wanted  much  leading  on — he  was  not  that  sort;  he 
was  like  one  of  those  big  bouncing  sort  o'  dogs  as'll 


THE  AWAKENING  OF  MISS  GIRVAN     239 

scarce  wait  for  a  look  In  your  eye  to  encourage  'em. 
But  Mr.  Girvan  was  very  different.  I  was  younger 
still  then,  and  prettier,  too,  but  he  was  a  deliberate 
kind  o'  gentleman,  as  had  been  a  bachelor  too  long 
to  give  it  up  without  a  bit  of  help,  and  I  did  help 
him,  else  p'raps  I'd  never  have  been  your  mother — 
and  many's  the  time  I've  wondered  whether  I'd  not 
better  have  left  him  alone.  But  I  doubt,  if  I  had, 
you'd  never  have  had  a  mother  at  all,  so  I  do.  But, 
Carrie,  I  shouldn't  like  to  think  o'  you  helping  on. 
It  wouldn't  be  like  you,  nor  yet  worthy  of  you,  so  it 
wouldn't." 

"Mamma,  dear;  I  wasn't  thinking  of  that  at  all 
when  I  said  I  was  wicked.  I  was  thinking  of  how 
I'd  treated  you,  not  since  I  grew  up — indeed 
always." 

"Treated  me !  I  don't  know  any  girl  as  does  more 
for  her  mother.  What  have  I  ever  wanted  for? 
Isn't  it  your  bread  I  eat?  and  isn't  every  stitch  on 
my  back  your  giving?  and  the  good  bed  I  lie  in, 
warm  and  comfortable  (when  many  lie  cold  and 
hard)  isn't  it  your  bed,  as  you  paid  for?  Yes,  and 
though  you  see  that  I  have  everything,  haven't  I 
always  plenty  in  my  purse?  And  my  children — 
where'd  they  be  but  for  you?  Who  educated  them 
and  paid  for  their  weddings,  and  saw  as  they  didn't 
go  empty  to  their  husbands?" 

Mrs.  Pentlow  made  no  more  pretence  of  knitting; 
her  knitting  lay  in  her  ample  lap,  and  her  large  soft 
hands  fluttered  in  the  air  and  large  shining  tears 
coursed  down  her  cheeks. 

But  Carrie  shook  her  head. 

"All  the  same,"  she  said  sadly,  "I've  neglected 
you—" 

"Neglected  me!  I'd  like  to  hear  anyone  else 
say  that !      If  that's  neglect !" 

"Yes.    That's  just  what  it  has  been.    I've  let  you 


240  THE  TIDEWAY 

live  all  alone  in  the  same  house  with  me.  All  these 
years.    All  these  selfish  years." 

"My  dear,  I  can't  abide  to  hear  you  speak  like 
that.  I've  always  understood.  We're  not  equals,  and 
that's  the  simple  truth.  I  was  never  your  papa's 
equal  and  he  missed  it.  Couldn't  I  see  it?  He  was 
a  gentleman  to  his  fingers'  ends,  and  I  was  never  up 
to  his  level,  never.  Poor  Pentlow,  you  couldn't 
do  with  him  at  all,  but  he  and  me  were  equals,  he 
was  my  sort,  and  he  was  the  husband  I  was  fit  for. 
And  Ben  and  Liz  and  Sue — I'm  the  mother  for 
them,  but  not  for  you.  It  cuts  me  to  hear  you 
blaming  yourself,  so  it  does," 

"Eh,  mother:  it's  time  I  did  blame  myself.  I've 
not  been  in  much  of  a  hurry  about  it.  Doesn't  all 
you  say  make  me  blame  myself  much  more?" 

"Then  I  wish  I'd  bitten  my  tongue  out  before 
saying  it — " 

"No,  I'm  glad.  It  shows  me  what  I'm  like,"  and 
the  girl  bent  her  pretty  head  lower,  toward  the  flick- 
ering red,  warm  heart  of  the  fire,  and  added,  "I 
know  now.  There's  only  one  real  lady  in  this  room, 
and  it's  not  me." 

"Oh,  dear!  Oh,  dear!  Carrie,  Carrie,  don't  say 
such  ugly  things.  Don't  now.  It  does  cut  me.  All 
the  beautiful  clothes  as  ever  you've  given  me  could 
never  make  a  real  lady  of  me,  and  I  know  it  well." 

"No,"  said  Carrie,  "it's  not  on  your  back,  it's  in 
your  heart.     And  God  did  it." 


V 

"Mamma,"  said  Carrie,  a  day  or  two  after  this, 
as  they  were  finishing  their  early  dinner,  that  Miss 
Girvan  had  liked  to  call  "luncheon,"  "those  ladies, 
the  nuns,  I  mean,  asked  me  if  I  would  go  to  tea  with 


THE  AWAKENING  OF  MISS  GIRVAN     241 

them  at  their  Convent.    I  think  I  shall  go  to-day." 

"Do,  my  dear.     It  will  do  you  good." 

"Yes.  I  think  I  shall  have  Blight's  carriage  and 
drive  there.   But  I  want  you  to  come,  too." 

"Me!" 

"You  wouldn't  mind  coming?" 

"Oh,  no,  I  should  like  to  see  that  place.  But 
shan't  I  be  in  your  way?" 

"When  you  say  that  it  cuts  me,  as  you  say.  Do 
come,  you'll  like  those  ladies." 

So  they  went  together.  And  the  drive  was  quite 
a  treat  to  Mrs.  Pentlow.  She  liked  an  excuse  for 
wearing  her  velvet  and  furs,  and  she  liked  what  she 
called  a  "ride";  and  particularly  she  liked  having 
Carrie  at  her  side  chatting  comfortably. 

At  the  Convent,  Miss  Girvan  asked  for  Sister 
Philippine  in  some  dread  of  hearing  that  she  was 
out  begging.  But  the  Sister  Portress  said  No,  it  was 
not  Sister  Philippine's  turn,  she  was  in,  and,  if  the 
ladies  would  wait  a  few  minutes  she  would  fetch  her. 
Meanwhile  she  led  the  way  across  a  bit  of  garden 
to  the  main  building. 

"It's  a  pretty  garden,"  said  Mrs.  Pentlow  to  Car- 
rie. "What  a  thing  for  those  old  bodies  to  have 
such  a  nice  place  to  walk  in." 

A  number  of  old  men  were  strolling  about  in 
groups  and  enjoying  a  pipe  of  tobacco. 

"I'm  glad,"  Mrs.  Pentlow  whispered,  "as  they 
let  them  smoke.  I  thought,  likely,  there'd  be  a  rule 
against  it,  when  you're  old,  and  poor,  and  done  for, 
a  pipe  o'  tobacco  is  a  fine  thing.  There's  not  so 
many  pleasures  left  as  you  can  do  without  one  and 
not  miss  it.  I  guess  these  nun-ladies  are  sensible. 
And  the  Convent's  a  fine  building,  look  I  Not  pris- 
ony.  A  fine  cheerful  house,  wi'  plenty  o'  windows 
and  light.  Yet  it  don't  look  all  draughts  and  bleak- 
ness.    Carrie,  here's  a  nun." 


242  THE  TIDEWAY 

It  was  Sister  Philippine,  and  she  was  walking 
toward  them  with  the  last  sort  of  person  in  the 
world  Miss  Girvan  would  have  expected  to  see 
there — a  young  man.  A  tall,  stalwart,  decidedly 
handsome  young  man,  with  a  rather  loud  voice,  and 
a  cheerful  open-air  kind  of  manner. 

"Sister  Philippine,"  said  the  Portress,  going  for- 
ward, "these  ladies  are  asking  for  you." 

"Well,  now!"  cried  Sister  Philippine,  "if  that's 
not  kind  of  you.  Miss  Girvan!  I  didn't  half  think 
you  meant  to  come.    And  you've  come  so  soon." 

Carrie  introduced  her  mother. 

"That's  better  still  of  you.  Miss  Girvan,  to  bring 
her  along.  This  gentleman  is  our  doctor,  Dr.  Des- 
mond Clare — he  cures  us  all  for  nothing.  Nearly  a 
hundred  patients  he  has  with  us  all,  and  not  a  fee 
among  the  lot!" 

"And  not  many  patients  among  the  whole  hun- 
dred," said  Dr.  Clare  laughing.  "Nuns  never  let  on 
that  they're  ill,  if  they  ever  are;  and  the  little  ones 
are  the  healthiest  children  I  come  across.  It's  only 
a  few  of  the  old  folk,  and  you  know,  Mrs.  Girvan, 
that  nursing's  the  best  part  of  doctoring,  and  it's 
the  Sisters  who  do  all  that." 

Mrs.  Pentlow  thought  him  a  delightful  young 
man — Carrie  was  not  sure. 

"But,"  said  the  former,  "though  I'm  like  Miss 
Girvan's  mother,  I'm  not  Mrs.  Girvan.  I'm  Mrs. 
Pentlow." 

As  plainly  as  if  she  had  said  It,  her  tone  Im- 
plied, "I'm  only  Mrs.  Pentlow,  that's  all." 

"Before  we  go  In,"  suggested  Sister  Philippine, 
"perhaps  you'd  like  to  see  the  garden.  This  is  only 
the  old  men's  garden.  The  old  women's  is  prettier, 
I  think,  and  then  there's  the  little  ones'  playground, 
and  their  little  garden  plots,  and  their  cricket  piece." 

I  do  not  propose  to  make  the  reader  also  go  round 


THE  AWAKENING  OF  MISS  GIRVAN     243 

those  gardens.  But  Mrs.  Pentlow  and  her  daughter 
went  round  the  whole  place,  and  Dr.  Clare  helped 
Sister  Philippine  to  do  the  honors. 

"If  I  hadn't  such  a  good  daughter,"  Carrie's 
mother  confidentially  informed  the  young  man,  "and 
want  for  nothing,  I  should  think  I'd  be  fine  and  con- 
tent here.    It's  that  homelike." 

"Yes,  it  is.  It  isn't  called  a  'Home,'  thank  good- 
ness, but  it  just  is  one.  We  never  call  our  own 
homes  'Homes,'  do  we?  We  stick  that  label  on 
places  that  aren't  at  all  home-ish,  and  that  aren't 
for  ourselves;  the  nuns  ttiake  this  a  home,  and  take 
good  care  not  to  label  it." 

All  the  same  he  was  half  laughing.  For  the 
elderly  lady  at  his  side,  in  her  furs  and  velvets, 
looked  so  particularly  prosperous  that  he  was 
amused  at  her  idea  of  needing  a  refuge  for  her  age 
but  for  having  such  a  good  daughter. 

Miss  Girvan  and  Sister  Philippine  were  well  in 
front,  and  Mrs.  Pentlow  (who  loved  talking) 
chatted  away  unrestrainedly  with  the  cheery  young 
Irish  doctor. 

"Do  you  live  here?"  she  asked  him. 

"Oh,  no.  I  live  in  town;  I  have  my  work  there. 
This  is  just  recreation." 

"What  part  of  town  do  you  live  in?" 

"In  Washington  Avenue.  All  by  myself.  I'm  a 
helpless  bachelor." 

"I'm  sure  you're  not  helpless.  Washington 
Avenue!  And  our  house  is  at  the  end  of  Jefferson 
Street,  not  so  far  off  of  it." 

"I  call  it  quite  near." 

"Who,"    demanded    Mrs.    Pentlow,    "mends    for 

'No  one  in  particular." 

'Eh  dear!    And  your  socks — when  there's  holes 
in  them,  how  do  you  manage?" 


"] 


244  THE  TIDEWAY 

""They  manage  to  get  bigger — the  holes  do,"  an- 
swered Dr.  Clare  laughing. 

"So  I  should  think!"  She  glanced  involuntarily 
down  at  his  feet  as  if  she  were  wondering  whether 
there  were  holes  in  his  socks  at  that  moment.  He 
perfectly  understood  the  glance. 

"Yes,"  he  confessed  boldly,  "my  toes  are  poking 
through  now." 

"It's  fearful.  Dr.  Clare,  I  just  wish  you'd  let  me 
mend  you.  I  mend  my  own  boy  still,  though  he  is 
out  in  the  world.  He  sends  me  a  parcel  o'  things 
and  I  send  them  back  something  more  Christian- 
like than  they  come.  But  I've  nothing  to  do,  and 
I'd  just  love  to  mend  you,  too;  your  own  mother 
wouldn't  mind?" 

"My  own  mother,"  the  young  man  said  gently, 
"has  gone  already  where  these  good  nuns  are  going." 

"Eh  dear,  eh  dear!  And  I'm  sure  she'd  be  no 
ways  an  old  woman  not  if  she'd  been  spared,  now." 

"She  would  be  fifty-two;  I'm  thirty-one,  and  she 
was  just  one  and  twenty  when  I  was  born." 

"Poor  thing!  And  to  have  to  go  away  and  leave 
you :  eh,  it  must  have  been  hard  for  her." 

"I  don't  know.  She  was  wrapped  up  in  my  father, 
and  his  death  nearly  killed  her:  she  died  herself  so 
soon  after  that  I  think  she  could  only  feel  that  she 
was  hurrying  after  him  catching  him  up  on  his 
way." 

"Well,"  said  Mrs.  Pentlow  with  all  her  frank 
simplicity,  "I've  buried  two  husbands:  and  it  was 
hard  enough  to  lose  them,  but  I  shouldn't  have  liked 
to  go  and  leave  my  children — I've  three  besides 
Carrie  there.  Not  own  brother  and  sisters  of  hers, 
you  know;  nor  yet  of  her  sort.  Ben  and  Sue  and  Liz 
are  more  ordinary-like." 

It  is  quite  possible  that  Miss  Girvan's  mother 
amused  Desmond  Clare,  but  if  he  smiled  sometimes 


THE  AWAKENING  OF  MISS  GIRVAN     245 

it  was  a  smile  full  of  friendliness.  He  liked  the 
simple  motherly  creature,  and  told  himself  that  she 
was  altogether  "a  good  sort." 

Presently  Sister  Philippine  took  her  turn  of  walk- 
ing with  her,  and  Miss  Girvan  fell  to  the  young 
man.  He  found  her  very  unlike  her  mother,  much 
less  talkative,  and  either  shy  or  reserved.  Had  she 
been  a  young  girl  fresh  from  school  he  would  have 
decided  that  she  was  merely  shy,  but  she  was  not 
without  a  certain  dignity  and  self-possession,  and 
her  demure  quietness  was  anything  but  awkward. 

He  found  the  easiest  thing  to  talk  about,  as  it  was 
In  the  circumstances  the  most  obvious,  was  the  Con- 
vent, the  nuns  and  their  work.  To  that  she  listened 
with  evident  interest,  and  after  a  while  he  perceived 
that  her  face  could  show  plenty  of  animation.  He 
was  quite  sure  that,  whereas  her  mother  had  almost 
at  once  begun  talking  of  him  and  of  herself,  It  would 
not  have  been  possible  to  make  Miss  Girvan  talk  of 
herself  or  of  him.  When  Sister  Philippine  led  her 
guests  indoors  she  begged  him  also  to  come  in  and 
have  his  tea,  but  he  excused  himself,  and  took  his 
leave. 

"My  dear,"  observed  Mrs.  Pentlow  as  she  and 
Carrie  drove  home,  "I  did  enjoy  It.  A  treat  it  was. 
And  what  a  splendid  tea !  I'd  like,  if  one  got  to 
know  'em  better,  to  ask  for  the  receipt  of  those 
potato-scones — as  light  as  feathers  they  were,  and 
so  much  taste ;  in  general  potato-scones  are  heavy 
and  no  more  taste  than  flock.  The  one  they  call 
Reverend  Mother — I  did  like  her:  and  so  pretty 
an'  all.  You'd  never  think,  she  had  all  that  great 
house  and  near  a  hundred  in  family  to  manage  for. 
A  pretty  doctor's  bill  she'd  have  every  year,  too, 
if  that  Dr.  Clarke  didn't  do  It  for  nothing." 

"  'Clare,'  Mamma:  his  name  is  Dr.  Clare." 

"Just  like  me.     I   always  do  get  wrong  hold  o' 


246  THE  TIDEWAY 

names.  Carrie,  I'd  like  to  give  them  something  for 
their  house — ^yoii  keep  me  so  well  in  pocket.  I'd 
got  it  on  the  tip  of  my  tongue  to  offer  something 
as  we  were  coming  away,  then  I  was  afraid  it'd 
look  badly — like  paying  for  the  good  tea." 

"Yes,  I'm  sure  you  were  right.  It  would  be  better 
to  send  it." 

VI 

"Norah,"  said  Carrie  a  fortnight  later,  "will  you 
tell  Mrs.  Pentlow  that  tea  is  ready?" 

"I  will,  Miss — but  she's  got  a  visitor.  A  young 
gentleman.     Shall  I  bring  another  cup?" 

Miss  Girvan  hesitated,  "almost  flurried,  she  was," 
Norah  subsequently  reported  to  the  cook. 

"Has  he  been  long?"  asked  Carrie. 

"Pretty  well.  Miss.    Best  part  of  an  hour." 

"Then  he  must  be  near  going.  No,  you  needn't 
bring  another  cup.  Just  tell  Mamma,  when  he  has 
gone." 

But  Norah  considered  that  the  breakfast-room  fire 
must  want  attention,  and  went  to  see  to  it  herself 
without  troubling  Jemima. 

"Norah,"  said  Mrs.  Pentlow,  "it's  nearly  five 
o'clock.  Didn't  I  hear  you  carrying  the  tea-things 
to  the  parlor?" 

"Yes,  ma'am.     It's  ready." 

"Then  we'll  go  to  tea,  come  along.  Dr.  Clare," 
said  the  old  lady.     "You  shall  carry  my  traps  for 


me." 


Norah  usually  carried  them,  but  she  was  far  too 
wise  to  offer  her  services  on  this  occasion.  She  went 
instead  for  the  extra  cup  and  saucer,  taking  care  not 
to  reach  the  drawing-room  before  Mrs.  Pentlow  and 
her  guest. 

"Well,  I  never!"  said  Jemima,  "a  gentleman's 
fallen  down  the  chimley  at  last!     If  it  wasn't  for 


THE  AWAKENING  OF  MISS  GIRVAN     247 

sollying  her  gown  I  guess  Miss  Girvan'd  be  fit  to 
jump  up  it  to  get  out  of  his  way." 

"An  Irish  gentleman,  too,"  said  Norah,  giving 
an  extra  polish  to  the  cup  and  saucer,  "and  lovely 
tall.    And  the  eyes  of  him!" 

"You  go  along.  It's  Miss  Girvan  as  his  eyes 
are  for." 

"Please  God." 

Miss  Girvan's  drawing-room  struck  Desmond  as 
somehow  quaintly  characteristic:  not  that  it  was 
quaint  in  itself,  but  simply  that  it  was  so  demure,  so 
staid,  and  prim :  it  was  by  no  means  ugly,  and  it  was 
comfortable,  warm,  too,  though  its  colors  were  cold. 
It  was  not  devoid  of  taste,  but  it  suggested  a  taste 
somewhat  timid.  And  it  was  too  elderly. 

"He  thinks  it  dreadful,"  thought  Carrie,  who  had 
caught  the  quick  comprehensive  glance  with  which 
the  young  man  took  it  all  in. 

She  was  not  sorry  to  see  him,  but  she  did  not 
look  glad.  He  shook  hands,  but  her  own  hand 
barely  touched  him  and  he  thought  it  limp.  He  had 
not  the  least  idea  that  she,  having  heard  from  Sister 
Philippine  of  his  good  work  among  the  poor,  his 
generosity,  and  self-sacrifice,  regarded  him  as  a 
hero. 

He  was  still  thinking  of  her  room.  "It  is,"  he 
thought,  "thirty  years  too  old  for  her.  Here  she 
evidently  lives,  she  has  assumed  the  role  of  old  maid 
at  eight  and  twenty."  (Needless  to  say  her  mother 
had  told  him  the  age  of  all  her  children.) 

As  Norah  had  said.  Miss  Girvan  was  really  a 
little  flurried,  but  her  manner  was  so  calm  and  staid 
that  it  only  showed  itself  in  a  slightly  heightened 
color  that  made  her  prettier. 

"It's  something  uncommon,"  observed  her  mother, 
"for  us  to  entertain  a  gentleman;  the  only  one  that 
ever  comes  in  is  Mr.  Pound." 


248  THE  TlDEfVAY 


(( 


'And  who,"  asked  Desmond  cheerfully,  "is  the 
lucky  Mr.  Pound?" 

"Oh,  he's  our  Minister — Reverend  Simeon 
Pound.  I  don't  know  as  he's  lucky.  He  has  eleven 
children  and  they  mostly  have  something  catching 
among  'em." 

"He  must  be  a  gold-mine  to  his  doctor,"  said 
Desmond  laughing. 

"Not  if  his  doctor's  like  you  and  does  it  all  for 
nothing,"  said  Mrs.  Pentlow. 

"Oh,  but  all  my  patients  aren't  nuns.  I  assure 
you,  I've  rather  a  big  practice,  and  some  nice  sickly 
rich  patients  among  them;  people  who  wouldn't 
think  it  respectable  to  have  a  cold  without  sending 
for  the  doctor.  Miss  Girvan,  I'm  sure  that's  a  first- 
rate  piano.    I'm  cracked  about  music." 

"She  never  plays,  hardly,"  complained  her  moth- 
er, "and  it's  a  pity.  She  used  to  play  anything  you 
like — nothing  too  hard  for  her.     She  studies,  you 


see." 


Desmond  looked  slightly  surprised.  He  had  not 
thought  of  Miss  Girvan  as  a  blue-stocking. 

"Oh,  Mamma!  The  truth  is,"  said  Carrie  sim- 
ply, "I  never  could  play.  At  school  they  taught  me 
difficult  sonatas,  but  I  always  had  wooden  hands. 
And  my  'studies'  are — reading  novels." 

Of  course,  when  she  mentioned  them,  he  glanced 
at  her  hands,  which  were  singularly  pretty,  and 
looked  by  no  means  wooden. 

"After  tea,"  she  went  on  quickly,  "perhaps  you 
would  have  mercy  on  that  poor  piano,  and  play  for 
us  upon  it.  It  is  always  kept  in  tune,  but  it  must  be 
wretched  having  all  possible  music  in  oneself,  as  it 
has,  and  for  none  of  it  ever  to  be  brought  out." 

"I  can't  believe,"  he  said,  watching  her  face  with 
interest,  "that  you  do  not  care  for  music,  or  you 
would  not  have  said  that.      Perhaps  you  are  idle." 


THE  AWAKENING  OF  MISS  GIRVAN     249 

"I  am  altogether  idle.  I  do  nothing  at  all.  Noth- 
ing. But  as  for  caring  for  music — I  only  know  that 
I  have  none  in  myself.  And  I  simply  do  not  know 
whether  I  should  care  for  it  in  anyone  else.  I  have 
never  heard  any  music  that  seemed  to  me  very  beau- 
tiful." 

"You  never  go  to  concerts?    To  good  concerts?" 

"We  have  lived  in  small  places,  and — to  tell  the 
truth  I  never  go  anywhere." 

"That  is  true,"  said  her  mother,  shaking  her  head 
rather  dolefully.  "Dr.  Clare,  young  people  are  sup- 
posed to  love  nothing  like  going  about,  but  she 
never  has  gone  anywhere.  Dear  me !  I  should  have 
thought  myself  in  prison  if  I'd  been  forced  to  shut 
myself  up  as  she  has  shut  herself  up,  and  no  one  to 
free  her." 

The  young  man  was  keenly  interested.  He  was 
sure  that  the  motherly  widow  was  letting  escape 
some  long  pent-up  feeling;  and  that  the  girl  shrank 
from  hearing  it,  not  crossly,  but  from  habit,  and 
from  a  shy  reserve  that  obsessed  her.  He  was  also 
sure  that  the  girl  was  not  merely  dull  or  stupid. 

To  him,  who  fully  realized  that  this  sober,  neu- 
tral-tinted room  was  all  the  setting  her  still  young 
life  had,  it  seemed  pathetic,  almost  ghastly.  There 
was  something  morbid  about  it  that  almost  angered 
him,  that  he  at  all  events  wanted  to  smash  up. 

"You  see,"  the  girl  said,  speaking  with  an  oddly 
humble  honesty,  "I  have  never  had  any  friends." 

Her  tone  said,  quite  simply,  "Why  should  I  have 
had  any?"  There  was  the  humility;  and  it  was  odd 
because  he  felt  instinctively  that  Miss  Girvan  had 
not  been  used  to  think  herself  inferior  to  her  sur- 
roundings. 

"If  you  have  had  no  friends,"  he  said  smiling, 
"surely  that  must  have  been  your  fault." 

"Oh,  yes,"  she  answered,  taking  his  words  in  a 


2 so  THE  TIDEWAY 

sense  quite  different  from  that  which  he  had  in- 
tended, "I  am  sure  it  must  have  been  my  fault.  The 
world  is  full  of  nice  people — I  am  sure  it  is.  But 
I  have  never  had  the  knack  of  finding  them." 

"And,  of  course,  if  you  really  do  always  shut 
yourself  up — in  here — they  could  not  find  you." 

"That's  what  I  say,"  declared  Mrs.  Pentlow, 
slightly  varying  what  she  actually  had  said,  "folks 
can't  knock  at  the  front  door  and  tell  the  girl  they'd 
thank  her  to  show  the  drawing-room  as  they'd  come 
to  make  friends  with  Miss  Girvan." 

But  Carrie  remembered  so  clearly  what  her 
mother  really  had  said,  that  she  flushed  hotly. 

"She's  very  pretty — more  than  pretty!"  thought 
Desmond.  Her  character  struck  him  as  by  no  means 
dull,  but  queerly  dormant,  and  he  was  sure  it  might 
awaken  to  something  fine  and  noble.  There  was, 
he  told  himself,  an  almost  childlike  innocence,  a  lim- 
pid purity  and  a  plain  honesty  that  the  cruel  shyness, 
or  timidity,  only  made  more  interesting.  Yet  he 
knew  that  she  was  useless,  and  he  was  used  to 
women,  like  the  Sisters  of  the  Holy  House,  whose 
whole  life  was  usefulness  and  service;  yet  her  use- 
lessness  did  not  at  all  dispose  him  to  think  meanly 
of  her — it  only  struck  him  as  a  part  of  her  mis- 
fortune. 

He  noted  shrewdly  that  when  she  was  not  blush- 
ing her  face  was  pale  with  a  rather  peculiar  del- 
icacy of  clear  whiteness,  yet  he  was  certain  that  she 
was  not  delicate  or  unhealthy.  It  was  simply  the 
result  of  a  life  almost  wholly  passed  indoors. 

"Now,"  she  said,  when  it  was  evident  that  he 
had  finished  his  tea,  "will  you  not  try  the 
piano ,'' 

He  at  once  did  as  she  asked.  And  Mrs.  Pentlow 
secretly  thought,  "She  can  play  better  than  him  if 
she  likes.     Those  things  aren't  difficult,  I  guess." 


THE  AWAKENING  OF  MISS  GIRVAN     251 

They  sounded  quite  simple  at  all  events,  and  were 
soft  and  dreamy,  largely  on  minor  keys;  a  string 
of  very  short  things,  without  (as  Mrs.  Pentlow  de- 
cided) much  tune.  She  liked  plenty  of  "air" ;  things 
you  could  get  hold  of  immediately  and  hum. 

Carrie  did  not  think  them  so  easy,  and  she  per- 
ceived at  once  the  delicacy  and  certainty  of  the  young 
man's  touch.  Listening  very  attentively  as  she  did, 
she  began  to  fancy  a  certain  sequence  and  connection 
between  the  rapidly  changing  themes ;  almost  a  voice 
expressing  one  idea  in  varying  phrases.  Some  of 
the  first  movements  were  a  little  sad,  in  all  there 
was  something  plaintive.  This  rather  surprised  her, 
for  he  had  struck  her  as  above  all  things  cheerful; 
indeed,  she  had  felt  his  buoyant  cheerfulness  almost 
as  a  reproach.  Yet  she  was  aware  that  in  what  he 
played  there  was  no  morbidity. 

After  quite  a  momentary  pause — as  if  what  he 
had  been  doing  was  merely  an  introduction — he 
seemed  to  express  a  theme  more  definitely.  There 
came  a  little  prelude  full  of  animation  and  light; 
then  a  movement  of  ever-deepening  softness,  almost 
sleepiness.  And  this  effect  remained;  and  here  it 
was  that  Carrie  became  fully  aware  of  the  com- 
poser's and  the  player's  genius,  for  surely  these 
sounds  were  meant  to  express,  and  did  express,  what 
you  would  say  sound  could  not — a  heavier  and  heav- 
ier silence.  It  did  not  really  last  long,  but  appeared 
to;  and  while  it  lasted  every  note  seemed  like  a  tiny 
flutter,  ghostly,  almost  inaudible,  falling  on  the  thick 
silence,  as  a  leaf  might  on  the  floor  of  an  autumn 
forest,  as  a  muffled  footfall  in  an  empty  place.  Then 
you  would  say  the  silence  was  a  mere  breathing  in 
sleep,  an  unconscious  waiting.  And  at  last  came  a 
light,  but  definite  footfall;  and  then  a  singular  rustle 
and  awakening,  like  the  spring's  resurrection,  that 
gave   all   the   effect   of   light   and   sunshine,    merry 


252  THE  TIDEWAY 

breeze,  and  merry  bird,  whose  frozen  music  thawed 
in  the  day's  eager  warmth. 

"What  is  it?"  Carrie  asked,  rising  and  going  over 
to  him,  as  soon  as  he  had  ended,  and  before  he 
had  time  to  go  to  her. 

"The  Legend  of  the  Briar  Rose." 

"By  whom?" 

"By  Nobody." 

Of  course  she  knew  that  he  meant  by  himself. 

VII 

It  grew,  by  fairly  rapid  degrees,  into  a  custom  for 
Desmond  to  come  to  see  Mrs.  Pentlow  and  her 
daughter.  And  every  time  he  came  he  played,  and 
presently  they  found  that  he  could  sing,  too.  Car- 
rie's mother  liked  the  singing  much  better;  she  could 
understand  it  better — so  she  thought. 

Because  she  liked  ballads,  he  oftenest  sang  them; 
old  English  ballads,  old  Scots  ballads,  and  Irish, 
too,  of  course. 

Mrs.  Pentlow  liked  the  English  ballads  best.  Car- 
rie liked  best  the  Scottish;  perhaps  there  was  some- 
thing in  her  Scots  blood  that  answered  to  them. 
Many  of  them  were  terribly  pathetic;  and  as  she 
sat  listening  by  the  fire  her  eyes  often  brimmed 
with  tears;  and  he  knew,  though  she  did  not  think 
that  he  could  see  her. 

"They  are  not  morbid,  it  seems  to  me,"  she  told 
him  one  evening,  "and  yet  they  are  so  pathetic  that 
I  can  hardly  bear  them." 

"There  is  nothing  morbid  In  pathos,"  he  answered 
simply.  "Nor  anything  unwholesome  in  being 
touched  by  real  sorrows,  though  the  hearts  that  felt 
them  have  ceased  to  beat  centuries  ago.  I  shouldn't 
think  very  well  of  you  if  you  could  hear  'The 
Queen's  Maries'  and  not  be  moved." 

The  echo  of  it  was  deeper  down  than  in  her  ears. 


THE  AWAKENING  OF  MISS  GIRVAN     253 

"Last  nicht  the  Queen  had  four  Maries, 
This  nicht  she'll  hae  but  three. 
There's  Mary  Beaton  and  Mary  Seton 
And  Mary  Carmichael — and  me." 


ii-yj . 


'Your  Scots  ballads,"  she  told  him,  smiling,  "have 
made  me  more   a  Jacobite  than  ever." 

"I'm  glad  you  are  a  Jacobite.  Every  woman  the 
world  over  is,  if  she  is  worth  anything,  and  a  Scots 
girl  must  be." 

"It  was  after  the  '45  that  my  great-grandfather's 
grandfather  came  over  here,"  she  said.  "He  was 
the  second  son,  and  had  'gone  out'  with  the  Prince. 
His  father  and  elder  brother  stayed  at  home." 

"Yes.  I  know.  To  see  how  the  cat  was  going 
to  jump.  I'd  rather  be  descended  from  your  man. 
My  people  had  fought  for  James  in  Ireland.  And 
the  King  made  the  Desmond  Clare  of  that  day  an 
Earl."  He  laughed  and  added,  "I'm  Jacobite  Earl 
of  Tallaght  now,  if  I  wanted  to  set  up  as  an  Amer- 
ican Earl." 

''Are  you  American,"  she  asked,  "or  Irish?" 

"I  am  both.  My  father  was  naturalized  here, 
and  I  was  born  here.  I'm  an  American.  But  every 
drop  of  my  blood  is  Irish,  and  I  was  educated  in 
Dublin." 

They  were  alone  in  the  drawing-room,  for  during 
Desmond's  singing  Norah  had  come  and  called  Mrs. 
Pentlow  away  to  see  a  dressmaker.  Carrie's 
mother  loved  clothes  still,  and,  not  regarding  her- 
self as  a  lily  of  the  field,  took  much  thought  as  to 
what  she  should  put  on. 

"Did  you  really  compose  that  music  you  played 
here  the  first  time  you  came?"  Carrie  asked,  almost 
absent-mindedly. 

"To  express  the  Legend  of  the  Briar  Rose?  Yes; 
it  came  out  of  my  head  as  I  went  along." 


254  THE  TIDEWAY 

"I  thought  it  wonderful.  I  don't  pretend  to  have 
known  all  it  meant — for  though  I  knew  the  legend, 
I  did  not  know  what  you  were  doing.  I  wish,  now 
I  do  know,  you  would  play  it  again." 

"I  don't  know  if  I  could.  I  was  thinking  then  of 
the  Legend.  Something  had  brought  it  into  my 
head." 

"Think   of   it   again!" 

"I'm  not  sure  if  I  can — in  the  same  way.  The 
Princess  has  begun  to  wake." 

He  looked  down  at  her  and  smiled;  it  was  a  very 
pleasant  smile,  kind  and  honest,  with  not  a  hint  of 
mockery  in  it.  But  she  looked  up  in  time  to  catch 
it,  and  certainly  he  had  no  cause  to  complain  that 
she  was  pale. 

"How,"  thought  he,  "could  I  ever  have  been  so 
stupid  as  to  think  her  pretty?     She  is  much,  much 


more." 


Yet  he  was  sorry  he  had  made  her  blush,  for  he 
was  singularly  unselfish,  and  though  it  made  her  (as 
he  thought)   lovely,  he  saw  that  she  was  startled. 

"Oh,"  she  said,  catching  at  anything  to  say,  "I 
have  wondered  whether  she,  the  Princess,  grew  old 
while  she  slept  her  long  sleep." 

"When  she  woke  she  was  younger  than  ever,"  he 
assured  her.     "And  she  kept  on  growing  younger." 

"I  hope,"  Carrie  declared  laughing,  "that  she 
knew  when  to  stop,  or  the  Prince  must  have  found 
her  a  perfect  baby." 

"Oh,  no!  no  fear  at  all  of  that.  He  liked  to 
watch  her  growing  younger.  In  that  way  he  could 
be  sure  that  her  wretched  long  sleep  had  stolen 
nothing — that  she  had  got  back  the  empty 
years." 

"It's  rather  a  ghastly  story  after  all.  It  all  hung 
on  a  chance.  If  he  had  never  come  she  would  have 
never  wakened." 


THE  AWAKENING  OF  MISS  GIRVAN     255 

"Oh,"  protested  Desmond,  cheerfully,  "he  was 
hound  to  come.    That  was  what  he  was  for." 

''He  hadn't  been  Idle  before.  He  had  been  doing 
all  sorts  of  things  while  she  slept." 

"All  sorts  of  dull  useful  things.  The  thing  was 
to  get  through  the  tangle  round  her  and  wake  her. 
That  was  his  business.  All  the  rest,  that  came  be- 
fore it,  was  only  training." 

"I  wonder,"  said  Carrie,  "whether  he  found  her 
after  all  rather  stupid?" 

"Certainly  not.  She  was  not  stupid — quite  the 
contrary." 

Carrie  laughed. 

"You  seem  to  know  all  about  her,"  she  said. 

"Yes.  I  have  made  a  complete  study  of  her.  If 
you  imagine  she  was  stupid  it  only  shows  that  I 
know  far  more  about  her  than  you  do." 

"Don't  you  think  that  she  was  liable  to  relapses? 
I  suspect  she  had  a  somnambulistic  way  at  times. 
The  sleep  had  got  so  into  her  bones." 

"You  really  do  not  understand  her  a  bit!  She 
had  slept  so  long  that,  once  awake,  she  had  a  horror 
of  it.  His  difficulty  was  to  induce  her  ever  to  shut 
her  eyes." 

"It  surprises  me  that  you  should  be  interested  in 
the  Legend.     It  isn't  my  idea  of  you." 

"Do  tell  me  what  your  idea  of  me  is." 

"Well,  I  should  have  thought  you  quite  incapable 
of  patience  with  anything  morbid;  and,  after  all, 
the  Briar  Rose  story  is  morbid." 

"No.  It  is  the  story  of  a  horrible  morbid  thing 
cured.  The  Princess  fell  sick  of  that  disease;  I  am 
interested  precisely  because  she  was  cured.  The 
Prince  cured  her.  You  see,  I  am  a  doctor;  and  a 
very  rare  disease  is  far  more  appealing  to  a  doctor 
than  an  every-day  one." 

"You  think  her  disease  very  rare?" 


256  THE  TIDEWAY 

**So  rare  that  I  never  expected  to  come  up  against 
a  case  of  it  in  real  life.  That  can  not  be  an  acci- 
dent. I  was  allowed  to  meet  it  in  order  to  cure  it. 
That  is  what,  I  believe,  I  was  for." 

"You  think   it  worth  while?" 

"I  can  imagine  nothing  better  worth  while — worth 
a  whole  life's  effort,  if  that  were  necessary.  I  tell 
you  that  I  believe  It  to  be  the  thing  I  am  for." 

"It  seems  to  me,"  she  said  in  very  low  tones,  "that 
you  are  very  humble." 

"Humble!  It  seems  to  me  that  I  am  very  ambi- 
tious— like  the  fellow  who  woke  the  princess.  You 
remember  how  he  did  it?" 

"By  breaking  through  the  tangle  that  had  grown 
up  all  around  her  while  she  slept." 

"That  first.  But  he  did  not  simply  call  out,  and 
babble  in  her  ear,  and  go  away.  He  held  out  his 
hand  and  asked  for  hers;  I  call  that  amazingly  am- 
bitious." 

"To  me  it  seems  quite  different.  Only  a  singu- 
lar goodness." 

"I  told  you  you  did  not  know  anything  about  her. 
Singular  goodness,  indeed !  Why  he  was  a  very 
ordinary  fellow.     She  was  miles  above  him." 

''She  didn't  think  so." 

"No,  God  bless  her!  She  had  slept  so  long — 
without  so  much  as  a  dream — that  she  simply  had 
no  idea  as  to  what  men  were  like.  And,  having  no 
one  to  compare  him  with,  when  she  saw  him  she 
did  not  know  that  he  was  quite  an  ordinary  decent 
sort  of  fellow." 

"Oh,  I'm  glad  you  have  done  abusing  him.  You 
admit  that  he  was  a  'decent'  sort  of  fellow." 

"Oh,  dear,  yes.  I'm  far  from  intending  to  abuse 
him.  I  should  like  to  make  the  very  best  of  him. 
I  should  paint  him  with  the  heroic  virtues — if  I 
wasn't  sure  of  being  found  out." 


THE  AWAKENING  OF  MISS  GIRVAN     257 

He  laughed,  and  she  smiled. 

"Perhaps,"  she  suggested,  "she  wouldn't  have 
demanded  quite  all  the  virtues." 

"No,  she  was  far  too  wise.  She  had  plenty  for 
the.m  both.  What  she  wanted  was  an  honest  fel- 
low, not  too  foolish,  a  protective  sort  of  man,  used 
to  the  knock-about  world  outside  of  which  she  knew 
nothing,  and  of  which,  alone,  she  would  have  been 
frightened,  in  which  she  would  have  lost  her  way 
badly.  She  had  all  the  delicacy  and  gentleness,  he 
had  to  supply  the  toughness  that  can  stand  the  knocks 
and  jars  of  life." 

"I  am  sure  he  was  gentle,"  Carrie  protested,  but 
in  a  very  soft  voice,  "marvelously  gentle." 

"Pray  don't  think  I  grudge  your  praising  him. 
I  love  it.  Praise  him  far  above  his  deserts  and  / 
shan't  object.  But  I'm  afraid  you  don't  know  him 
as  well  as  /  know  her." 

"Oh,  I  can  fancy  he  had  his  faults.  For  instance, 
he  was  sure  he  knew  best." 

"Only  about  her." 

"For  my  part  I  would  rather  believe  what  his 
friends  say  of  him  than  what  you  say.  As  to  her 
friends " 

"Poor  lady!     She  hadn't  any." 

They  both  laughed,  and  Carrie  lifted  demurely 
laughing  eyes  to  his  and  asked: 

"How  can  you  tell!" 

"I've  heard  her  say  so," 

"Gracious!     And  she  dead  this  thousand  years!" 

"She's  no  more  dead  than  you  are.  She  isn't  even 
very  old.     Not  very,  very  old." 

||How  old?" 

"She  looks  about  one  and  twenty.  Sometimes 
much  younger." 

"That's  not  very  honest  of  her.  For  she's  older 
than  that.     A  great  deal  older." 


258  THE  TIDEWAY 

"Gracious!     And  how  do  you  know?" 

*'She  and  I  were  much  together  as  children :  even 
earlier.  I  can't  remember  her  birth,  but  I  remem- 
ber her  falling  downstairs  at  four  years  old  and  it 
hurt  me.     It  even  raised  bumps  on  my  forehead." 

"What  sympathy!  You  must  have  been  fond  of 
her!" 

"I  don't  know  that  I  was.  I  don't  know  that  I 
am.  She  bored  me  to  death.  She'd  bore  you  if 
you  had  to  live  with  her  as  I  have." 

"No.  You're  wrong  again.  There  is  nothing 
boring  about  her.  She  interests  me  all  the  time.  I 
propose  to  spend  all  the  rest  of  my  life  with  her, 
and  you  shall  see  that  she  will  give  up  boring  even 
herself.  Only  she'll  have  to  do  for  me  what  she 
did  for  the  fellow  who  got  through  the  tangle.  You 
pretend  to  know  all  about  her.  Do  you  think  she'll 
do  that?" 

"Do  what?" 

"Give  me  her  hand?" 


A  PRELUDE  IN  PROSE 

WHEN  It  became  known  in  Blackmere  that  Mere 
Park  was  taken  there  was  quite  a  flutter  of 
excitement. 

"It  would  be,"  said  Miss  Ranger,  "a  great  thing 
for  the  place  if  some  really  pleasant  strangers  came 
among  us." 

"Oh!  of  course,"  Miss  Bywater  agreed  (but 
doubtfully),  "if  they  really  were  pleasant." 

"I  agree  with  you,"  Mrs.  Landward  observed, 
"one  never  knows  what  strangers  will  be :  and  we 
have  been  so  comfortable  among  ourselves.  We  all 
get  on  together," 

"Yes,"  said  Miss  Ranger,  "that's  just  it. 
We  are  all  getting  on  together.  None  of  us  grow 
younger.    ..." 

"I  shouldn't  wish  to,"  declared  Miss  Bywater, 
who  certainly  might  have  grown  thirty  years  younger 
without  becoming  exactly  a  girl. 

Mrs.  Landward  sighed;  but  her  sigh  was  more 
cheerful  than  Miss  Bywater's  protestation  of  con- 
tentment. She  was  nearly  seventy,  and  had  long 
given  up  thinking  of  youth. 

"All  the  wishing  in  the  world  wouldn't  make  me 
anything  short  of  an  elderly  woman,"  Miss  Ranger 
continued;  "but  a  little  young  blood  in  the  place 
would  do  us  all  good." 

"There  are  the  Carraway  girls,"  suggested  Miss 
Bywater. 

"Yes;  and  all  three  of  them  have  been  the  Carra- 
way girls  these  twenty  years,"  remarked  Miss 
Ranger,  ruthlessly.  "And  there  are  the  four  Dear- 
ings — all  young  ladies,  no  doubt;  but  the  youngest 
of  them  will  never  see  thirty  again." 

259 


26o  THE  TIDEWAY 

"Cissy  and  Carry  are  twins,  though,  and  not  five 
and  thirty,"  Miss  Bywater  observed,  "and  Helena 
comes  between  them  and  Julia.  Julia  won't  be  two 
and  thirty  till  July — she  was  called  after  the  month." 

"I  shouldn't  at  all  mind  if  the  new  people  at  Mere 
Park  were  young — quite  young,"  said  Mrs.  Land- 
ward. "But  I  rather  shrink  from  strangers.  And 
I  hope  they  won't  be  rich — we  all  live  so  quietly." 

"A  little  money  in  the  place  wouldn't  be  amiss," 
Miss  Ranger  observed,  "and  they  are  not  likely  to 
be  millionaires.  Mere  Park  is  nice,  but  it  would  not 
accommodate  any  establishment." 

"Old  Mrs.  Prestwick  always  kept  a  butler,"  Miss 
Bywater  reminded  her,  slightly  offended.  For  Mere 
Park  was  the  nearest  approach  to  a  "place"  quite 
close  to  the  little  town. 

"Oh,  yes,  and  a  gardener,  and  three  maids;  that's 
not  an  establishment,"  said  Miss  Ranger. 

She  was  second  cousin  of  Sir  Park  Ranger,  of 
Rangewood,  and  had  larger  ideas  than  Miss  By- 
water. 

"I  wonder  if  there  will  be  many  daughters,"  Mrs. 
Landward  remarked.  She  took  it  for  granted  that 
the  tenant  would  be  a  widow  lady — old  Mrs.  Prest- 
wick had  been  a  widow,  and  all  the  married  ladles 
in  Blackmere  (except  the  doctor's  wife  and  the  Rec- 
tor's) were  widows  and  had  daughters.  No  one 
had  any  sons  on  the  spot;  the  doctor  had  one,  and 
so  had  the  Rector,  but  Dr.  Swallow's  son  was  in 
the  Colonies  and  the  younger  Mr.  Glebe  was  a 
curate  in  the  Midlands. 

"There  may  not  be  any,"  suggested  Miss  Ranger. 
"There  may  be  seven  sons." 

So  bold  a  surmise  startled  Mrs.  Landward. 

"It  would  be  a  great  thing  for  the  Carraways 
and  the  Bearings,"  said  Miss  Bywater.  "Seven 
sons!" 


A  PRELUDE  IN  PROSE  261 

*'If  they  were  not  too  young,"  said  Miss  Ranger 
drily. 

As  it  turned  out,  the  tenant  of  Mere  Park  was 
not  3.  widow;  but  he  was  a  widower,  and  not  of- 
fensively young — perhaps  as  old  as  Miss  Bywater. 
He  had  not  many  daughters,  only  one  in  fact,  and 
that  one  was  hardly  twenty  years  of  age;  pretty, 
too,  and  with  pleasant  manners,  as  every  one  agreed 
as  soon  as  she  had  been  seen  in  church. 

Captain  de  Guise  looked  delicate,  and  Miss  de 
Guise  evidently  tXDok  great  care  of  him.  There  was 
also  a  young  man — not  precisely  handsome,  but 
"well-looking,"  and  certainly  better  dressed  than  Dr. 
Swallow.  Was  he  a  brother?  Was  he  a  young  Mr. 
de  Guise,  or  only  a  visitor?  If  he  was  Captain  de 
Guise's  son,  would  he  live  at  Blackmere,  and  if  so 
what  would  he  do  there  ? 

It  transpired  in  the  course  of  a  day  or  two  that 
he  was  Captain  de  Guise's  son,  but  only  half- 
brother  to  Miss  de  Guise,  for  the  Captain  was  not 
now  for  the  first  time  a  widower. 

Mrs.  Landward,  who  had  only  been  a  widow  once, 
thought  he  should  not  have  married  again;  Miss 
Bywater,  who  had  never  been  a  widow,  thought  it 
did  not  matter.     He  was  not  old  even  now. 

"I  call  Muriel  a  sweet  name,"  she  declared,  "it 
sounds  hereditary;  and  de — with  a  small  'de,'  you 
know — quite  aristocratic;  no  doubt  they  are  well 
connected.  Muriel  de  Guise!  I  wonder  what  the 
Captain's  name  is — something  equally  distinguished, 
I  daresay;  his  nose  is  marked;  you  can  see  that.  I 
remember  Lord  Oldcourt's  nose,  when  he  gave  new 
colors  to  the  Militia." 

"So  do  I,"  said  Miss  Ranger,  "when  he  blew  it 
it  was  like  a  fog-horn." 

"I  alluded  to  the  shape.  It  was  remarkable — all 
the  Oldcourts  have  it,  I  understood." 


262  THE  TIDEWAY 

"Miss  de  Guise  hasn't  her  father's  nose,  and  I 
think  she  is  just  as  well  without  it,"  Miss  Ranger 
noted. 

"Oh!  there  are  male  and  female  noses  in  fam- 
ilies," Miss  Bywater  conceded,  "hers  may  be  some 
ancestress's.  I  should  say  young  Mr.  de  Guise  must 
be  nine  and  twenty  .  .  .  and  Julia  Dearing  doesn't 
look  more." 

Ranalph  de  Guise  was,  in  fact,  twenty-seven,  and 
the  Captain's  name  was  Ranalph,  too.  Lest  the 
reader  (should  there  be  one)  should  share  in  Miss 
Bywater's  altruistic  hopes  on  Julia  Dearing's  behalf, 
we  may  as  well  say  at  once  that  to  the  day  of  his 
death  the  younger  Ranalph  never  had  any  inkling 
of  them,  and  never  realized  the  separate  existence 
of  any  of  the  Miss  Dearings.  And  yet  he  continued 
to  live  in  Blackmere. 

And  so  did  his  sister,  which  concerns  us 
more. 

On  the  whole,  the  arrival  of  the  de  Guise  family 
did  little  to  justify  the  pleasant  fluster  it  had  occa- 
sioned. No  one  accused  them  of  being  too  fine  for 
the  place,  and  they  were  civilly  responsive  to  its 
gentle  advances.  But  the  Captain  thought  himself 
an  invalid,  and  disliked  evening  parties  except  In 
his  own  house.  Muriel  seemed  occupied  in  making 
him  comfortable,  and  her  brother  was  often  away. 
It  was  whispered  that  he  was  a  poet,  and  he  would 
not  have  objected  had  he  been  aware  of  the  whisper, 
though  he  would  have  preferred  to  have  it  circulated 
in  London. 

"I  should  think,"  he  observed  kindly  to  his  sister 
one  day,  "that  you  could  write  yourself.  Prose,  of 
course."  (No  poet  ever  believes  that  any  contem- 
porary could  write  poetry.) 

"Certainly  It  would  be  prose — if  I  wrote  in  verse," 
said   Muriel.      "It  generally  is,   don't  you  think?" 


A  PRELUDE  IN  PROSE  263 

"It  almost  always  is.  That's  why  I  recommend 
you  not  to  affect  verse.  I  shouldn't  like  to  see  your 
initials  at  the  bottom  of  a  'Lyric'  in  the  Poet's  Cor- 
ner of  a  local  paper." 

His  own  initials  had  lately  been  visible  to  the 
world  at  the  end  of  a  Sonnet  on  the  Waterhen  in  a 
Saturday  weekly  much  addicted  to  literature  and  to- 
tal abstinence.  Ranalph  had  now  quite  decided  to 
adopt  poetry  as  a  profession;  and,  having  seven  or 
eight  hundred  a  year  of  his  own,  It  did  not  much 
matter. 

When  he  spoke  of  his  sister  writing  prose,  It  was 
chiefly  an  opening  for  the  discussion  of  his  own  fu- 
ture as  a  poet:  and,  as  she  did  not  seem  disposed 
to  jump  at  his  fraternal  suggestion  on  her  account, 
he  did  not  press  the  matter,  but  talked  about  lit- 
erature and  himself  instead. 

"Raeburn  says,"  he  observed  gravely,  "that  my 
powers  (whatever  they  may  be)  will  never  fully 
awake  till  I  have  suffered." 

Miss  de  Guise  had  often  heard  of  Mr.  Raeburn; 
he  had  been  at  Cambridge  with  her  brother,  and  was 
now  on  the  staff  of  the  paper  that  had  published 
"The  Waterhen."  She  Imagined  him  to  be  a  some- 
what ladylike  young  man  with  more  taste  than  sense; 
but  she  had  never  seen  him,  and  only  knew  him  as 
quoted  by  Ranalph. 

"Wordsworth  must  have  suffered  a  lot,"  she  re- 
marked.    "In  secret,  I  suppose." 

"Oh !  Wordsworth  !  I  don't  know  that  I  think  so 
very  much  of  Wordsworth.  Only  about  two  per 
cent,  of  his  sonnets  are  great." 

He  had  expected  that  some  reviewer  would  have 
said  of  "The  Waterhen"  that  no  finer  sonnet  had 
appeared  since  Wordsworth's  "On  Westminster 
Bridge";  but  the  remark  had  not  yet  been  made. 

"By  the  way,"  he  said,  at  the  end  of  this  conver- 


264  THE  TIDEWAY 

sation,  "Raeburn  wants  to  come  down  here.  Shall 
I  say  next  week?" 

When  Mr.  Raeburn  arrived  Muriel  was  agree- 
ably surprised.  That  he  had  taste  she  could  not 
deny;  his  talk  about  books  and  about  beauty  in  na- 
ture, though  not  at  all  forced  or  ostentatious,  proved 
it.  But  he  was  not  in  the  least  ladylike;  neither 
was  he  (as  she  had  decided  he  would  be)  prettily 
good-looking.  Perhaps  he  could  hardly  be  called 
good-looking  at  all,  but  he  had  a  fine,  strong  face, 
and  a  manly  figure,  stalwart  and  vigorous.  He  was 
certainly  not  deficient  in  good  sense  and  he  did  not 
talk  too  much;  when  he  did  talk,  he  evidently  knew 
what  he  wanted  to  say.  Somehow  to  her  surprise 
he  said  to  her  one  day: 

"Don't  encourage  Ranny  to  go  in  for  poetry.  If 
it's  there  it  will  come  out.  A  man  ought  to  work; 
I  don't  call  making  sonnets  work.  A  fellow  who  has 
nothing  to  do  but  wonder  what  he  can  say  in  poetry 
will  never  have  anything  to  say." 

"I  thought  you  encouraged  him." 

"No,  I  don't.  I  got  them  to  put  in  his  sonnet, 
because  it  deserved  to  be  put  in — better  than  plenty 
of  verses  they  had  published.  But  I  try  to  make 
him  do  something  with  his  life :  if  his  life  has  noth- 
ing in  it  neither  will  his  poetry  have  anything  in  it. 
To  some  men  troubles  have  given  the  spur  that 
drove  them  to  be  poets — but  one  doesn't  desire  that 
incentive  for  one's  friend." 

"And  a  woman?  Have  the  women  who  wrote 
best  had  any  special  trouble,  or  anything  special 
at  all  in  their  lives  to  urge  them  into  literature?" 

"Miss  de  Guise,  I  wasn't  talking  of  women  or  of 
literature,  but  of  a  young  man  who  wants  to  be  a 
poet . 

"I  beg  your  pardon." 

"You  needn't.    I  only  asked  you  to  note  what  was 


A  PRELUDE  IN  PROSE  265 

my  point.  Now  for  yours.  The  five  greatest  women 
writers  in  English  have  been,  as  I  think,  Fanny 
Burney,  Maria  Edgeworth,  Jane  Austen,  Emily 
Bronte  and  George  Eliot.  The  last  was  set  on,  it 
may  be,  by  the  cross-purposes  of  her  life.  Emily 
Bronte  was  unique  and  can  form  no  instance  for 
common  argument.  The  other  three  were  particu- 
larly normal  women  who  were  only  remarkable  for 
doing  with  extraordinary  fidelity  the  duties  they 
found  ready  to  hand.  If  Emily  Bronte  and  George 
Eliot  can  hardly  be  cited  as  peculiarly  domestic,  they 
can." 

"So  you  think  a  woman's  absorption  in  her  home 
need  not  prevent  her  writing?" 

"Not  if  she  knows  how.  Jane  Austen,  Fanny 
Burney,  and  Miss  Edgeworth  certainly  did  know 
how.   Do  you  know  that  I  am  a  publisher's  reader?" 

"No.  I  thought  you  were  on  the  staff  of  the 
Lambeth  Review." 

"So  I  am.  It  does  not  mean  a  great  deal.  I  write 
about  two  columns  a  week  in  it.  I  could  hardly  live 
on  that.  I  write  other  things:  and  also  I  read  for 
one  firm  of  publishers.  'House'  is  the  cant  term  now, 
not  'firm';  we  only  talk  of  the  Firm  of  Habsburg 
or  Bourbon;  it  is  the  House  of  such  and  such  a  pub- 
lisher. In  Byron's  time  they  didn't  mind  being  called 
booksellers." 

"Do  you  have  to  read  many  books  by  women?" 

"Hundreds — and  by  old  women  in  trousers,  too. 
It's  not  a  fiercely  exciting  trade — being  a  publisher's 
reader.  But  now  and  then  one  is  rewarded.  I  have 
here  in  the  house  with  me  a  MS.  that  is  a  book. 
I  should  like  to  read  you  some  of  it.     May  I?" 

"Wouldn't  that  be  unfair  to  the  writer?" 

"Depend  upon  it  the  writer  would  like  all  the 
world  to  read  it:  and  many  will." 

"Is  it  a  man's  writing  or  a  woman's?" 


266  THE  TIDEWAY 

"The  writer  assumes,  or  really  owns,  a  name  that 
might  be  a  man's  or  a  woman's.  That  is  why  I  con- 
clude it  is  not  a  real  name.  You  remember  that  the 
Brontes  called  themselves  Currer,  Ellis,  and  Acton 
Bell." 

"And  this  name?" 

"Ah!  That's  a  different  matter.  I  am  sure  I 
may  read  you  part,  or  if  you  like,  the  whole  of  the 
book;  but  I'm  not  so  sure  that  I  can  tell  the  author's 
name — yet.  I  shall  certainly  advise  our  people  to 
publish  the  book,  and  they  will :  then  you  will  know 
the  name." 

When  Mr.  Raeburn  began  to  read.  Miss  de  Guise 
said  laughingly,  "I  mustn't  peep  at  the  MS.  or  I 
should  certainly  make  up  my  mind  whether  the 
handwriting  were  a  man's  or  a  woman's.'' 

"You  may  peep  as  much  as  you  like ;  it  is  all  type- 
written.    Shall  I  begin?" 

He  read  three  or  four  chapters ;  then  paused. 

"Well?"  he  asked.     "Have  you  nothing  to  say?" 

"I  am  not  a  publisher's  reader." 

"No.  But  I  know  you  are  what  is  more  to  the 
point — a  reader.  If  anyone  talks  to  me  for  five 
minutes  about  books  I  can  tell  if  they  know  what  a 
real  book  is." 

"And  you  have  said  that  this  is  a  book?" 

"Yes.  A  singular  book.  Not  because  it  deals 
with  abnormal  things — that  is  mere  singularity  and 
may  be  merely  bad  taste.  You  can  see  that  it  deals 
with  quite  ordinary  people  and  events;  and  there  is 
no  effort  to  make  them  seem  rare  and  strange.  The 
rarity  is  in  the  power  to  make  them  absorbing.  Can 
you  deny  you  are  interested — already?" 

"No.     It  does  not  interest  me." 

"It  must.  This  writer  is  so  full  of  interest  in  the 
plain  folk  described,  so  intimate  in  knowledge  of 
them  that  the  capacity  of  appreciation  amounts  to 


A  PRELUDE  IN  PROSE  267 

creation.     No  great  author  ever  created  anybody; 
the  'creations'  of  fiction  or  of  poetry  are  monstrosi-. 
ties.     Shakespeare  and  Jane  Austens  did  not  manu- 
facture men  and  women,  but  perceive  them." 

"Jane  Austen  and  Shakespeare  in  a  breath!" 

"The  universe  and  a  village  tea-party  may  be 
joined  in  a  breath;  both  are  real.  His  theme  was 
everything;  hers  was  what  she  knew.  No  one  could 
have  known  it  more  perfectly.  This  writer  also 
knows;  and  he  (or  she)  handles  a  thing  Jane,  the 
supremely  tactful,  never  touched — emotion—and  so 
delicately  that  one  is  moved  before  suspecting  any 
assault  on  one's  feelings.  A  pathetic  grocer.  Con- 
fess you  never  foresaw  pathos  threatening  a  gro- 
cer with  flabby  ears." 

"I  shall  confess  nothing.  The  moment  the  gro- 
cer appeared  (dropping  h's  over  his  shoulder  to  his 
wife  in  the  parlor  behind  the  shop)  I  knew  that  he 
was  ultimately  intended  to  give  me  a  lump  in  my 
throat." 

"And  he  did!" 

"I  was  too  much  occupied  in  watching  the  effect 
of  him  upon  you." 

"I  wish  you  would  not  fence.  Tell  me  that  you 
relish  the  quality — the  real  literary  quality — of  what 
I  have  read." 

"Of  course,  if  you  insist  on  my  relishing  it!" 

"That's  fencing  again.  I  know  that  you  do  relish 
fine  work — little  as  we  have  talked  about  books  I 
know  that.  You  are  not  so  uncertain  of  your  own 
judgment  as  to  admire  any  that  has  been  sealed  with 
public  admiration.  Come  now — praise  me  this  new 
writer's  work." 

"How  can  I  refuse?  I  am  a  most  obliging  per- 
son. Tell  me  in  what  terms  I  am  to  praise  and  I 
will  use  them." 

"Obligingly!     Miss  de  Guise,  you  are  exasperat- 


268  THE  TIDEWAY 

ing.  If  this  were  poetry  and  you  were  a  poet,  I 
should  tell  you  you  were  jealous." 

"No,  I'm  not  jealous  of  your  new  author.  I  wish 
him  (or  her)  all  possible  success.  By  the  way,  how 
do  you  know  it  is  a  new  author?" 

"Because  with  such  powers  if  he  was  not  new  he 
would  be  well  known ;  and  authors  stick  to  the  rep- 
utation they  have  gained  like  grim  death." 

"You  think  this  one  will  achieve  reputation?" 

"Yes." 

"And  fortune,  too?" 

"Perhaps.  But  the  two  things  do  not  quickly  unite 
just  now.  I  meant  literary  reputation,  and  the  best 
literary  work  is  not  the  most  successfully  financial. 
If  'Cranford'  were  as  yet  unpublished,  and  were  to 
appear  now,  it  would  gain  for  its  author  a  real  rep- 
utation, but  it  would  not  probably  make  her  rich. 
But  you  still  wander  from  my  point ;  tell  me  frankly 
what  you  think  of  this  book  I  am  reading  to  you." 

"Why  not  go  on  reading  it?" 

"Because  I  want  encouragement.  My  own  opin- 
ion of  this  writer  is  very  high;  but  I  would  like  an- 
other opinion." 

"How  can  my  opinion  be  independent  when  you 
force  it?  Oh!  please  don't  look  savage.  Come,  I'll 
praise.  The  people  interest  me,  as  you  say  they 
interest  the  author;  I  feel  that  I  know  them." 

"Exactly.  And  also,  I  hope,  that  the  author 
makes  them  worth  knowing,  which  a  less  art  could 


not." 


"Very  well.     I  concede  that,  too." 

"I  don't  want  concessions.  I  want  spontaneous 
admiration." 

Miss  de  Guise  laughed. 

"You  want  so  much,"  she  said. 

"Yes.  More  than  I  may  ever  get — from  you. 
More  than  you  suspect.     You   are  determined  to 


A  PRELUDE  IN  PROSE  269 

economize  your  eulogies  of  this  writer  and  I  am 
disappointed.  I  thought  you  would  be  more  gen- 
erous." 

"You  are  so  generous  yourself  there's  no  keeping 
pace  with  you.  I'm  sure  Curtis  Marke  ought  to  be 
much  obliged  to  you." 

("Curtis  Marke,"  said  Mr.  Raeburn  to  himself, 
"she  never  saw  the  title-page.") 

"The  typescript,"  he  observed  aloud,  "reached 
our  house  from  a  London  Club  for  ladies  and  gen- 
tlemen. I  think  of  calling  there  and  asking  to  see 
Mr.  Marke——" 

"But  how  if  it  be  a  name  assumed?" 

"I  think  It  is;  but  I  should  run  the  real  person 
to  ground.  If,  as  I  believe,  the  author  is  a  lady,  I 
should  have  a  proposal  to  make." 

"About  the  publication  of  the  book?" 

"About  that  In  any  case.  But,  I  should,  ulti- 
mately, propose  something  else,  if  Curtis  Marke 
should  be  a  lady." 

"Oh!" 

"She  and  I  might  share  profits." 

"Do  publishers'  readers  usually  make  that  sort  of 
proposal?" 

"They  can  only  make  it  once.  There  could  only 
be  one  way  of  it.  Curtis  Marke  would  have  to  be- 
come Mrs.  Raeburn." 

"How  romantic!  But,  Mr.  Raeburn,  how  if  she 
were  indeed  a  lady,  but  married  already?" 

"Then  I  should  be  disappointed  again." 

"Again?  Have  you  already  'proposed  to  Nom 
de  Guerre'  and  found  her  married?" 

"No;  I  was  alluding  to  the  way  in  which  you  dis- 
appointed me  by  your  stinginess  of  admiration  of 
this  writer,  whom  I  so  deeply  admire.  Curtis 
Marke  might  disappoint  me  again." 

"By  having  a  ready-made  husband,  I  see.     Per- 


270  THE  TIDE fF AY 

haps  it  would  be  safer  not  to  risk  any  such  discov- 
ery. Why  not  let  well  alone,  and  publish  his 
book " 

"Her  book." 

"Very  well,  since  you  are  so  sure.  Her  book;  and 
leave  the  sharing  of  the  profits  alone?" 

"I  prefer  the  risk.  And  as  to  the  profits.  I  am 
not  really  thinking  of  them.   It  is  the  author  I  want." 

"Dear  me !  What  a  romance !  And  perhaps  she 
is  fifty — and  like  a  horse.  Do  not  profane  people 
say  that  the  sublime  George  Eliot  was  like  a  horse?" 

"Oh,  she  is  not  in  the  least  like  a  horse:  and  I 
doubt  if  she  is  one  and  twenty." 

"You  are  in  love  with  her  book,  and  have  made 
a  frontispiece  to  it  (her  portrait,  of  course),  and 
have  fallen  in  love  with  it,  too !" 

"Over  head  and  ears." 

"How  delightful:  and  what  is  the  frontispiece 
like?" 

"Miss  de  Guise,  I  am  not  a  poet,  nor  a  painter. 
I  cannot  sing  or  paint  perfection  .  .  .  just  go  over 
to  that  looking-glass  and  look  in  it,  and  you  will 
have  a  more  exact  idea  of  the  frontispiece  than 
any  awkward  words  of  mine  could  give  you." 


MANEUVERS 


Lor!"   exclaimed  Mrs.  Tumblin,  pointing  with 
her  whip  at  a  placard  posted  in  front  of  the 
bridge  over  which  she  was  just  about  to  drive. 

This  Bridge  is  entirely  destroyed. 

C.  D.  Martingale, 
H.  O.  Longmore, 

Umpires. 

said  the  placard,  printed  on  white  paper  and  affixed 
to  a  board  mounted  on  a  lean,  leggy  pole. 

"Lor!  William,  look'y  thar!"  cried  Mrs.  Tum- 
blin over  her  shoulder. 

William  had  his  back  to  the  placard,  but  turned 
himself  round  to  read  it  aloud. 

"Don't  look  as  If  t\ie  destruction  was  visible  to 
the  naked  eye,  do  It,  mum?"  he  observed,  eyeing  the 
bridge,  which  presented  the  same  appearance  It  had 
worn  during  a  good  many  centuries. 

"No,  it  don't!"  agreed  his  mistress,  rubbing  her 
nose  with  the  whip-handle  about  where  its  bridge 
would  have  been  if  It  had  ever  had  one. 

William  got  down  and  clambered  over  the  rails 
into  the  field  on  the  right  to  get  a  good  side  view 
of  the  bridge. 

"All  right  this  side,"  he  called  out.  Then  climb- 
ing back  Into  the  lane,  and  thence  Into  the  field  on 
the  left  of  It,  "All  right  this  side,  so  far  as  mottle 
eye  can  see." 

"S'pose,"  his  mistress  suggested,  "I  get  down  and 
walk  over;  If  It  bears  me  you  can  lead  the  mare 


oer." 


271 


272  THE  TIDEWAY 

"Yes,  mum.  But  wait  till  I've  walked  o'er  first. 
If  it  bears  me,  'twill  carry  you." 

It  did  bear  him;  it  also  bore  Mrs.  Tumblin, 
though  if  it  be  true  that  the  last  straw  can  break 
the  camel's  back,  the  difference  between  her  weight 
and  William's  might  have  done  the  bridge's  busi- 
ness. For  Widow  Tumblin  was  a  big  woman,  tall 
and  portly,  and  whereas  William  was,  as  she  herself 
considered  "an  insignificant  scrap  of  a  creature," 
who  had  been  brought  up  in  a  racing  stable  and 
retained  all  the  meagerness  of  his  youth.  The  mis- 
tress expanded  with  the  years,  as  they  rolled  pros- 
perously by,  the  man  only  dried  and  withered  like 
some  sorts  of  apples. 

"P'raps  you'd  better  take  the  mare  out  and  lead 
her  over,"  suggested  Mrs.  Tumblin,  safe  on  the 
homeward  side  of  the  bridge,  "and  then  just  pull 
the  car  o'er.  Dumpling's  heavy.  I  should  be  loth 
to  see  the  bridge  go  in  with  man  and  cart  and  all." 

"So  should  I,  mum.  If  it  did,  I'd  have  the  law 
o'  they  Manoovers,  if  I  was  you,  mum." 

"No  law  for  me,  thank  you  kindly.  I'd  set  the 
County  Council  on  'em.  Seems  hard  tho'  as  they 
Manoovers  should  go  about  like  roarin'  lions  blowin' 
folks's  bridges  up." 

While  she  stood  watching  William  lead  the  mare 
over,  a  young  officer  on  horseback,  with  a  white  band 
round  his  arm,  came  clattering  down  the  lane. 

^''Halloa !    What's  up ?"  he  called  out. 

"Seems  as  this  here  bridge  is  destroyed  com- 
pletely," replied  the  widow. 

"Oh,  it'll  carry  you,"  the  ofiicer  declared,  laugh- 
ing.    "You're  not  a  belligerent." 

"That's  as  may  be,"  said  the  widow,  uncertain 
whether  a  compliment  or  the  reverse  was  intended. 

The  officer  rode  over  the  bridge  himself  and  can- 
tered away,  with  sharp  glances  to  right  and  left. 


MANEUVERS  273 

Dumpling  was  harnessed  again  as  his  mistress  took 
the  reins,  then  William  got  up  behind  and  they  drove 
on. 

As  they  turned  in  at  the  white  gate  that  led  by 
rather  a  fine  old  avenue  of  elms  to  her  own  front 
door — ^not  that  Mrs.  Tumblin  was  going  there,  for 
she  always  drove  into  the  yard — she  espied  a  sec- 
ond placard,  more  audacious,  as  she  inwardly  de- 
clared, than  the  first. 

This  Farm  and  Outbuildings  is  occupied  by 

Half  a  Battalion  of  Cavalry 

(Southern  Army) 

C.  D.  Martingale, 
H.  O.  Longmore, 

Umpires. 

S3.IO     f'nP     DI3P3T*(i 

"Well,  I  never!"  cried  the  widow.  "That  Mar- 
tingale beats  all  for  imperence." 

"And  Longmore's  as  bad,  tho'  he  do  come  in  half 
a  neck  behind,"  agreed  William. 

"Cavalry  too!  They'll  eat  up  all  the  new  hay, 
sure  as  my  name's  Maria." 

"And  the  troopers'll  have  nought  to  do  but  make 
love  to  the  wenches,"  suggested  William. 

"Where  be  they,  'Lijah?"  she  called  out  to  a 
carter,  who  had  just  turned  loose  the  big  wagon 
horses  in  the  home  field. 

''Be  '00?"  asked  'Lijah. 

"Why,  they  cavalry — the  sodgers  !" 

"There  baint  bin  no  sodgers,  except  three  as  came 
to  the  back  door  a  while  gon  and  asked  for  a  drink 
o'  milk — and  paid  for  it,  tuppence  a  glass,  they  did. 
Sixpence  they  gave,  they  did  for  the  three  glasses." 

"And  Miriam  should  never  have  took  it,"  cried 


274  THE  TIDEWAY 

the  widow,  "pore  thirsty  chaps.  It's  just  encour- 
aging them  against  temperance;  surely  there's  milk 
enow  without  charging  sodgers  tuppence  a  glass  for 
it.  But  'Lijah — where's  the  rest  of  'em?  The 
half  battalion  o'  cavalry  as  the  board  gives  notice 
of?" 

*'0h,  them!  Them's  nowhere.  I  see  the  of- 
ficers come  and  have  thick  board  set  up.  I  axed 
'em  if  you  was  agreeable,  and  they  said  no  doubt 
you  was.  All  ladies  was,  and  the  cavalry  wasn't 
comin'.  That  board  was  to  prevent  others  fro' 
comin'.  Then  they  laughed  both  on  'em,  and  said 
as  much  hay  as  goed  in  a  teaspoon  would  feed  all 
the  horses  that  half-battalion  would  eat   on  yer." 

"Lor!"  said  Mrs.  Tumblin,  stepping  to  earth 
with  a  confused  sense  of  the  intricacies  of  military 
tactics. 

"Aunt  Maria!"  came  in  a  clear,  high  voice  from 
the  garden. 

"Well,   Fan?" 

"I'm  looking  for  you.  I've  been  out  blackber- 
rymg ! 

"It's  early  for  'em,"  said  her  aunt,  letting  her- 
self into  the  garden  by  a  small  white  wicket,  "but 
the  summer's  been  so  hot  and  long,  they're  ripe,  I 
dessay,  before  their  time." 

"Yes,"  replied  Fan,  a  very  pretty  girl  as  slim 
and  fair  as  her  aunt  was  stout  and  rubicund.  "I 
found  plenty.     But,  Aunt  Maria " 

"Well,  then?" 

"In  the  far  close,  where  I  found  enough  in  one 
hedge  to  fill  the  basket  nearly,  I  found  a  poor  sol- 
dier lying  just  as  if  he  was  dead,  right  in  the  hot 
sun  with  his  face  turned  up — as  red  as  a  plum,  poor 
fellow." 

"My  goodness!" 

"Yes,   and  I  believe  he'd   fainted.     He  was   all 


MANEUVERS  275 

alone,  and  his  comrades  would  never  have  left  him 
lying  there  if  they'd  known,  would  they?" 

"They're  'ard-'arted,  sodgers  is,"  observed  Wil- 
liam, who  was  listening  over  the  low  wall. 

"Anyway  he  was  all  alone,"  Fan  went  on  rather 
breathlessly,  for  she  had  run  home  nearly  all  the 
way  from  the  far  close,  "and  his  collar  seemed  so 
tight  and  he  was  strapped  up  so,  with  all  sorts  of 
guns  and  knapsacks  and  bottles  strapped  all  over 
him " 

"Bottles  there's  sure  to  be,"  remarked  William 
with  cold  criticism. 

"And  I  was  half  afraid  the  poor  thing  would  die, 
Aunt  Maria " 

"Like  enough,"  said  Aunt  Maria,  sympathetically, 
but  enjoying  herself. 

"Not  he !"  said  William. 

"So,"  Fan  went  on  hastily,  "I  undid  him." 

"Larks!"  cried  the  widow. 

"Him,  indeed!"  said  William. 

"I  undid  his  neck,  and  it  was  ever  so  hard " 

"His  neck  was?"  queried  Aunt  Maria. 

"His  cheek,  I  doubt,"  suggested  William. 

"The  buttons  were,"  said  Fan,  "and  then,  because 
I  hadn't  any  brandy  or  anything " 

"Not  likely.  Whativer'd  you  want  with  brandy 
in  the  far  close " 

"I  ran  home,  and  please,  Aunt  Maria,  do  send 
a  couple  of  men  to  carry  the  poor  fellow  home " 

"And  how  on  earth  am  I  to  tell  where  his  home 
is?"  the  widow  expostulated. 

"The  canteen's  his  home,  I  reckon,"  said  William. 

"Home  here,  I  mean,"  Fan  explained.  "We  can't 
leave  a  fellow-creature  to  die  in  our  far  close." 

"Not  if  we  can  stop  him,"  her  aunt  agreed 
heartily. 

William  would  have  argued  out  the  question  of 


276  THE  TIDEWAY 

his  being  a  fellow-creature.  But  the  opportunity 
was  not  permitted  him. 

"Just  you  put  that  mare  up,"  his  mistress  called 
out  over  the  low  wall,  and  tell  John  and  Enoch  to 
come  on  to  the  far  close  in  a  minute.  Come,  Fan, 
we'll  go  on  first,  and  take  a  spot  o'  brandy  and  a 
jug  o'  water  with  us."  , 

Armed  with  the  "spot"  in  question  (about  a  pint) , 
a  glass  and  the  water-jug,  the  widow  and  her  niece 
made  haste  to  the  far  close.  The  soldier  was  sit- 
ting up,  staring  vaguely  at  the  landscape. 

"For  all  the  world,"  thought  Mrs.  Tumblin,  "like 
a  calf  that's  lost  his  mother." 

"Hope  you're  feeling  more  like  yourself,"  she 
observed  aloud:  not  that  she  had  the  slightest  idea 
how   that  might  be. 

"Yes,  a  bit,  thank  you,"  the  soldier  answered, 
trying  to  get  up.  He  was  a  mere  boy,  quite  slight 
and  delicate  looking.  The  widow's  motherly  heart 
went  out  at  once  to  him.  She  had  had  a  baby  son 
once,  who  had  just  taken  a  peep  at  this  world  and 
had  enough  of  it. 

"Just  take  a  sip  of  this,"  she  said,  plumping  down 
on  the  grass  at  his  side  and  handing  him  a  glass  of 
pretty  strong  brandy  and  water.  "It'll  do  'ee  good, 
maybe." 

It  did  do  him  good. 

"What's  the  matter,  lad?"  the  kindly  woman 
asked.  "What's  hurtin'  ye?"  She  had  noticed  a 
look  of  pain  on  the  young,  innocent  face. 

"Well,"  the  boy  answered  simply,  "I  fell  at  that 
hedge — the  others  were  a  good  bit  in  front  and  I 
couldn't  keep  up  because  I'd  chafed  my  heel  long 
before,  and  could  scarcely  limp  along  on  it.  I  fell 
on  my  leg  and  I  think  it's  broken.  I  dragged  myself 
up  out  of  the  ditch,  and  then  I  suppose  I  went  off." 

"Dear  heart!    And  the  sun  this  side  of  the  hedge 


MANEUVERS  277 

beatin'  down  on  'ee  like  a  furnace.     Poor  lad,  we'll 
see  to  it.     Hurry  up,  John,  there,  you  and  Enoch." 

"William's  on'y  just  told  us,"  coming  up  at  a 
ramshackle  trot. 

"Now  this  Immediate  minute,"  Enoch  corrobo- 
rated. 

Their  mistress  bade  them  kneel  down  (like  a  pair 
of  camels)  and  make  a  "lady's  chair"  with  their 
four  joined  hands:  the  soldier  with  an  arm  round 
each  of  their  necks  was  hoisted  upon  It,  and  the 
procession  moved  homewards. 

At  the  farm  they  found  the  young  officer  who  had 
passed  the  widow  by  the  bridge. 

"This  is  your  farm?"  he  began  with  an  easy,  good- 
humored  politeness.  "I  delivered  a  despatch  and 
thought  I'd  ride  in  and  explain  about  the  cavalry. 
But  I  see  you're  In  charge  of  an  ambulance.  ..." 

Then  explanations  followed,  and  the  officer  said 
he  would  ride  on  to  camp  and  send  back  a  doctor. 

"His  leg's  broken  sure  enough,"  he  observed  in 
a  lower  voice  to  the  widow,  with  a  glance  at  the 
helplessly  dangling  limb  in  question.  "They'll  send 
an  ambulance  to  take  him  to  the  field  hospital,"  he 
added  in  a  business-like  manner. 

"No  they  won't!"  declared  the  widow.  "He'll 
just  bide  here.  Let  the  doctor  come  and  welcome, 
but  the  lad'U  be  in  bed  'fore  he's  ten  minutes  older, 
and  in  bed  he'll  lie  or  my  name's  not  Maria  Tum- 
blin.     That's  flat,  perambulance  or  no!" 

"I'm  sure  you're  very  good,"  the  young  officer 
said,  with  a  glance  that  included  Fan.  "We  shall 
all  come  here  to  break  our  legs.   ..." 

"Get  along,"  cried  the  widow,  "and  you,  John 
and  Enoch,  bring  the  lad  up  the  front  way — the 
stairs  is  easier.  Sorry  to  leave  you,  sir,  but  it  never 
was  good  for  a  broken  leg  yet  to  be  kept  waiting." 

The   young   officer,   thus   dismissed,   saluted   and 


278  THE  TIDEWAY 

rode  off  at  a  quick  trot.  Quarter  of  an  hour  after 
the  soldier  boy  was  safe  in  bed,  a  medical  officer 
rode  up  and  took  the  case  in  hand. 

"A  rough  diamond,"  the  other  officer  had  said 
to  himself  as  he  trotted  away  with  a  smile  as  he 
thought  of  Mrs.  Tumblin;  "good  sort,  too.  The 
daughter  seems  a  different  class  altogether." 

This  was  sharp  of  him,  as  he  had  not  even  heard 
Fan  speak,  and  he  was  right  in  both  his  judgments, 
for  the  widow  was  a  "diamond,"  and  a  rough  one, 
and  her  niece  was,  as  Maria  Tumblin  would  have 
stoutly  maintained  herself,  of  a  different  quality 
entirely. 

For  generations  Matthew  Tumblin's  family  had 
owned  Sheepdown  Farm,  and  about  a  thousand 
acres  of  lands  belonging  to  it;  but  some  of  his  imme- 
diate ancestors  had  set  up  for  little  squires  and  had 
spent  more,  hunting  and  sporting,  than  the  modern 
Sheepdown  estate  warranted.  When  Matthew  suc- 
ceeded there  was  a  mortgage  of  five  thousand  pounds 
on  the  land,  and  he  had  scarcely  anything  left  to  live 
upon.  Fortunately  for  him,  he  fell  in  love  with 
Marie  Netherstone,  the  only  child  of  a  well-to-do 
miller,  who  died  the  year  after  their  marriage,  and 
her  money  paid  off  the  mortgage  and  left  a  thou- 
sand pounds  over. 

Matthew,  however,  died  young  and  Maria 
reigned  in  his  stead,  for  they  had  never  had  chil- 
dren, except  the  baby  son,  who  lived  less  than  a  year. 

As  his  wife  had  freed  the  land,  Matthew  left  it 
to  her,  his  only  sister  being  well  provided  for,  she 
having  married  a  Chalkminster  solicitor,  one  Her- 
bert Newbridge  (Esquire  by  Act  of  Parliament). 
Frances  Newbridge  was  the  only  child  of  this  mar- 
riage, a  very  nice  girl,  pretty  and  well  educated. 

She  was  fond  of  her  uncle's  widow,  and  often 
stayed  with  her,  Mr.  Newbridge  being  well  content, 


MANEUVERS  279 

for  he  also  liked  his  wife's  sister-in-law,  and  agreed 
with  his  wife  that  Sheepdown  ought  not  to  go  off 
to  any  of  Maria  Netherstone's  cousins. 

As  we  have  no  room  for  mysteries,  we  may  say 
at  once  that  the  widow  had  never  the  least  inten- 
tion of  leaving  her  husband's  property  to  anyone 
but  her  husband's  niece.  And  during  her  long  wid- 
owhood she  had  done  well  by  the  little  estate,  buy- 
ing back  a  neighboring  farm  that  had  long  ago 
belonged  to  it. 

But  with  all  her  comfortable  prosperity,  the 
widow  never  set  up  for  a  lady;  her  father  had 
started  as  a  working  man,  and  her  mother  had  been 
the  daughter  of  a  very  small  farmer.  That  her 
husband's  niece  was  a  lady  she  had  no  doubt  what- 
ever. 

While  the  two  women  were  at  supper  a  step  was 
heard  on  the  walk,  and  a  knock  came  on  the  front 
door  that  opened  onto  the  pretty  garden. 

"It's  that  doctor  captain  come  back,  I'll  be  bound, 
though  he  said  he  shouldn't  till  the  morning,"  re- 
marked the  widow,  in  a  low  tone  to  her  niece. 
"Well,  let  him.  There's  always  supper  for  an  extry 
one  in  this  house,  thanks  to  goodness.  Well,  Cap- 
tain, so  you've  looked  in  again — oh!" 

For  as  Kezia  ushered  in  the  visitor,  the  widow 
perceived  it  was  not  the  doctor. 

"Yes,  I've  looked  in  again.  I  thought  I'd  like  to 
walk  over  and  ask  how  your  patient  is." 

It  was  the  young  officer  who  had  passed  the  widow 
by  the  bridge. 

"You're  welcome.  Captain.  Kezia,  set  another 
place.     You'll  have  a  taste  of  supper,  won't  you?" 

"Thank  you,  I  shall  be  very  grateful;  there's  not 
much  going  up  at  camp,"  and  the  stranger  looked  at 
Fan  as  if  he  thought  an  introduction  might  be  con- 
venient. 


28o  THE  TIDEWAY 

"This  is  my  niece  (leastways,  my  poor  hus- 
band's), Miss  Newbridge,"  explained  the  hostess. 

*'My  name's  Martingale.    ..." 

"Indeed!"  murmured  the  widow  ("the  imperent 
one!"  she  thought  to  herself). 

Then  aloud: 

"It's  you  that  destroys  the  bridges,  is  It?'* 

"Me?  Oh,  no!  That's  my  uncle,  Colonel  Mar- 
tingale.    I'm  only  a  galloper." 

"Only  a  galloper!  And  how  fast  might  the 
colonel  ride,  then?"  exclaimed  the  widow. 

The  young  officer  laughed,  and  explained  briefly 
his  official  position  on  maneuvers.  He  was  a  cheer- 
ful young  man  and  good-looking,  as  the  widow  was 
not  too  old  to  notice  with  approval. 

"I'm  a  sort  of  mounted  errand  boy,"  he  declared. 
"My  uncle's  a  big  pot  and  hardly  remembers  my 
existence.  I'm  not  a  captain,  though  you  kindly  call 
me  one — so,  of  course,  I  ought  to  be  one." 

It  occurred  to  Fan  that  he  had  rather  forgotten 
the  young  soldier  with  the  broken  leg.  And  this  oc- 
curred to  him  also  presently,  for  he  repeated  his 
inquiries  with  an  easy  air  of  interest  and  good- 
will. 

"As  it  happens,  the  lad  belongs  to  my  own  regi- 
ment," he  observed,  "and  what's  more,  too,  to  my 
own  company;  so,  of  course,  I  take  an  interest. 
You'll  forgive  my  looking  round  to  ask  about  him?" 

"Yes,   sure.      Come  when  you  like." 

"Oh,  we'll  be  moving  on  soon,  but  not  to- 
morrow. There's  to  be  a  big  battle  close  to-morrow. 
You  and  Miss  Newbridge  might  like  to  see  it.  I'll 
tell  you  where  to  go  to  see  it  properly.  You  know 
that  hill  with  the  British  Camp  on  it?" 

"Tinling's  Rings,"  the  widow  interpolated,  and 
the  young  officer  told  them  all  about  it. 

After  supper  the  widow  went  off  to  see  her  pa- 


MANEUVERS  281 

tient,  and  Mr.  Martingale  said  he  would  wait  and 
hear  her  report.  So  Fan  and  he  were  left  alone  for 
a  quarter  of  an  hour — Mr.  Martingale  thought  five 
minutes — and  observed,  on  the  widow's  return,  that 
her  clock  seemed  fast. 

"Farm-house  clocks  always  are,"  she  admitted. 
''They're  mostly  half  an  hour  before  the  day." 

"Ah,  I  thought  so,"  said  the  officer,  as  if  that 
made  it  obvious  that  there  was  no  hurry. 

"Well,"  he  promised,  when  he  said  good-night, 
"I  shall  look  for  you  on  Tinling's  Rings — about  ten 
o'clock,  mind.  And  I'll  tell  you  what  it's  all  about. 
You'll  never  get  so  good  a  sight  of  a  battle  in  all 
your  life." 

"Please  God!"  said  the  widow. 

"So  he's  not  the  imperent  one,"  she  remarked, 
when  the  last  sound  of  his  footsteps  had  died  out 
on  the  gravel  path. 

"He  did  not  seem  to  me  at  all  impertinent." 

"That's  what  I'm  saying,  I  like  his  way.  So  free 
and  pleasant  and  none  cheeky  with  it  all." 

The  widow  saw  the  battle  next  day  and  under- 
stood nothing  whatever  about  it.  If  Fan  also  failed 
to  understand  it,  it  was  not  Mr.  Martingale's  fault. 
If  sanguinary,  the  combat  was  not  protracted,  for  it 
was  all  over  by  two  o'clock  or  so. 

"The  Northern  Army,"  Mr.  Martingale  assured 
them,  riding  up  for  the  ninth  time  to  the  side  of 
the  governess  cart,  "is  completely  annihilated." 

"Wiped  out,"  said  Mr.  Martingale  complacently. 
"That  regiment,"  he  explained,  pointing  to  a  very 
lively  looking  body  of  men  swinging  over  the  hill 
in  the  direction  of  their  camp,  "was  cut  to  pieces. 
Nine  out  of  ten  of  them  are  as  dead  as  mutton." 

"It  makes  my  flesh  creep  to  hear  'ee,"  the  widow 
protested,  and  Fan  and  the  young  officer  only 
laughed  at  her. 


2  82  THE  TIDEWAY 

"If  you've  the  heart  to  peck  a  bit  after  such 
ghastly  doin's,"  said  the  widow,  "you'll  find  it  down 
home  at  Sheepdown." 

"That  I  have — only  there's  a  bit  of  a  pow-wow 
first,  and  I  must  hang  round  till  the  bosses  have 
done  it — then  I'll  come.  I  daresay  I'll  not  be  very 
late.  You  drive  by  the  lanes — I  ride  across 
country." 

He  saluted  and  rode  off,  the  widow  vaguely  sur- 
mising that  pow-wow  was  some  military  dish  he 
was  bound  to  devour  on  the  field. 

"Some  nasty  Indian  mess,  I'll  be  bound,"  she 
assured  herself. 

The  pow-wow  by  no  means  destroyed  Mr.  Mar- 
tingale's appetite  for  Mrs.  Tumblin's  roast  chicken, 
and  all  the  afternoon  he  lingered  on  at  the  farm. 
Fan  liked  poetry,  and  he  read  it  aloud  beautifully — 
under  the  cedar  tree,  while  the  widow  dozed  and 
knitted.  Having  been  out  all  morning,  she  had  a 
mildly  unearthly  feeling  as  If  it  were  Christmas 
Day  (for  Wednesday  couldn't  possibly  be  Sunday) 
In  the  third  week  of  September.  Once  she  snored, 
and  woke  up  slightly  offended  with  the  other  two 
in  consequence,  but  they  had  clearly  not  noticed,  and 
she  merely  remarked  that  the  last  piece  was  the 
prettiest. 

"So  I  think,"  said  the  officer,  without  explaining 
that  the  last  piece  had  been  read  over  half  an  hour 
before. 

^  :|:  4<  :{:  4:  ^ 

The  lad  with  the  broken  leg  got  quite  well  at 
last,  and  went  away  with  a  very  grateful  heart,  but 
he  was  wise  enough  to  be  most  grateful  to  the  widow, 
although  her  niece  had  found  him  first  In  the  far 
close. 


MANEUVERS  283 

Mr.  Martingale  went  away  too,  but  not  "for 
good."  The  last  time  he  went  Mrs.  Martingale 
went  with  him,  and  nowhere  in  all  the  earth  was 
there  any  Frances  Newbridge — not  that  her  parents 
minded,  or  her  aunt  either. 


ATHELMAR 


LADY  Francis  Acres,  of  Coldacres  Park,  had 
a  good  deal  to  be  thankful  for,  but  hardly 
realized  it.  On  the  contrary,  she  considered  her- 
self a  failure,  and  her  original  intention  had  been 
to  achieve  a  striking  success.  She  had  been  the 
beauty  of  her  father's  five  daughters — but  then 
Lord  Martinhampton's  other  children  were  almost 
all  plain — Lord  Chilmark,  the  eldest  son,  was  un- 
deniably ugly,  though  his  excellent  temper  and 
lively  manners  made  it  a  matter  of  very  little  con- 
sequence. The  son  of  a  rather  poor  earl,  he  had 
married  the  handsomest  daughter  of  a  marquess 
who  was  so  rich  that  it  was  always  said  he  would 
be  raised  to  a  dukedom. 

Lady  Mary  St.  Mark,  Lord  Martinhampton's 
eldest  daughter,  was  nearly  as  plain  as  her  brother; 
but  she  too,  did  very  well  indeed,  for  she  married  her 
brother's  wife's  second  brother,  Lord  Hubert,  who 
was  Chancellor  of  the  Duchy  of  Cornwall  in  two 
Conservative  administrations.  Lady  Adelberta 
was  only  a  little  better  looking,  but,  as  her  husband 
was  a  bishop,  it  did  not  matter. 

Lady  Gladws  was  as  plain  as  her  eldest  sister, 
and  yet  she  married  an  ambassador,  who  was  given 
an  earldom  on  retiring  from  diplomatic  life. 

The  Ladies  Frances  and  Rachel  were  twins,  but 
very  little  alike ;  what  resemblance  there  was  only 
served  to  accentuate  the  great  superiority  of  Lady 
Frances  in  point  of  beauty.  So  that,  when  Lady 
Rachel  married  Sir  John  Wrest,  of  Wrestling  Hall, 
one  of  the  greatest  magnates  in  the  proud  country 
of  Rentshire  (where  the  squires  were  all  rich  enough 
to  be  peers)   it  was  confidently  predicted  that  her 

284 


ATHELMAR  285 

pretty  sister  might  look  very  high  indeed.  Perhaps 
she  looked  too  high.  One  of  her  grandfathers  had 
been  a  duke,  and  she  thought  there  was  a  duke  who 
would  like  her  to  be  a  duchess.  But  he  married  a 
Miss  Mayflower,  of  Massachusetts,  and  there,  as 
far  as  Lady  Frances  was  concerned,  was  an  end  of 
him.  One  thing  she  had  resolved  not  to  do,  after 
her  twin's  marriage,  and  that  was  to  become  the 
wife  of  any  baronet.  She  did  not  like  Sir  John 
Wrest  at  all,  and  almost  told  him  so :  he  as  good 
as  said  that  he  did  not  care  sixpence  whether  she 
did  or  no.  Also,  she  explained  to  her  family  that 
a  baronet  was  a  ridiculous  thing — a  commoner  with 
an  hereditary  title,  no  coronet,  and  precedence  be- 
low younger  sons  of  life  peers. 

And  yet  at  thirty  she  herself  married  a  baronet, 
of  about  her  own  age,  and  not  strikingly  handsome, 
nor  phenomenally  clever  or  good-tempered.  He 
had  not  (as  she  had  pointed  out  several  years 
earlier)  even  a  Christian  name — he  was  Sir  Fal- 
lows Acres.  "Baronets  don't  have  Christian 
names,"  she  observed.  "It  is  part  of  their  absurd- 
ity— look  round  you  (it  was  at  a  ball  in  London) 
there's  Sir  Fulham  Rhodes,  Sir  Euston  Square,  Sir 
Kensington  Gore,  Sir  Snell  Marshgrove,  Sir  Bridge 
Knight,  Sir  Frene  Peak,  Sir  Rutland  Gate — not  a 
Christian  name  among  them!" 

Still,  if  she  had  chosen  to  remember  it,  she  had, 
as  we  have  said,  many  things  to  be  thankful  for. 
Her  husband  was  wealthy,  and  she  could  not  pos- 
sibly have  been  poor;  and  his  family  was  ancient, 
and  the  baronetcy  dated  from  Charles  I's  time. 
Coldacres  Park  is  a  fine  place,  and  the  house  is 
large,  comfortable,  and  singularly  picturesque — 
more  like  a  castle  than  many  big  places  that  are  so 
called — it  was,  in  fact,  a  castellated  manor  house, 
dating  from  the  fifteenth  century,  and  it  had  always 


2  86  THE   TIDEWAY 

belonged  to  the  Acres  family.  Sir  Fallows  was 
member  for  his  division  of  the  county,  and  the  house 
in  London,  17  Kent  Square,  in  Belgravia,  was  also 
a  family  mansion,  and  had  belonged  to  his  ancestors 
since  the  square  was  built,  and  long  before  it  was 
re-christened  after  Queen  Victoria's  father.  Added 
to  all  this.  Sir  Fallows  was  very  fond  of  his  wife, 
and,  though  not  a  sweet-tempered  man,  he  was  an 
excellent  husband  and  of  most  respectable  character. 
To  her  he  was  always  courteous,  and,  indeed,  consid- 
erate. He  proved  it  by  never  betraying  in  words  his 
disappointment  that  she  brought  him  no  heir.  The 
family,  indeed,  was  in  no  danger  of  extinction,  for 
his  brother  Constantine  had  three  sons,  and  his  uncle 
Philip  had  two  sons  and  five  grandsons.  But  neither 
Sir  Fallows  nor  Lady  Frances  liked  Constantine  or 
his  boys,  and  they  particularly  disliked  Uncle  Philip 
and  all  his  clan.  So  Lady  Frances  felt  herself  a 
failure;  instead  of  being  ancestress  to  a  line  of 
dukes,  she  had  only  to  look  forward  to  being  aunt- 
in-law  to  a  baronet. 

II 

Lady  Frances  was  not  addicted  to  good  works. 
The  role  of  Lady  Bountiful  had  no  charms  for  her; 
it  almost  implied  intimacy  and  co-operation  with 
the  Rector  of  Cold  Glebeham,  and  she  could  not 
abide  parsons,  and  detested  the  Rector — as  did  her 
husband.  Also,  she  was  sensitive  to  unpleasant 
smells,  and  declared  that  all  cottages  smelled  of 
corduroy  and  Irish  stew.  Nor  did  she  care  for  the 
sort  of  adulation  which  (she  chose  to  believe)  was 
the  payment  fine  ladies  exact  for  condescending 
charity  to  their  poor  neighbors.  Had  she  inter- 
ested herself  in  the  poor  around  her  she  would  have 
been  less  bored  in  the  country;  as  it  was,  having 


ATHELMAR  287 

no  children,  and  finding  most  of  her  neighbors  of 
her  own  class  rather  dull,  she  was  often  bored  for 
days  together. 

But  though  not  addicted  to  the  ordinary  good 
works  of  ladies  in  her  position,  Lady  Frances  had 
an  irresponsible  kindness  of  heart,  and  her  heart 
suffered  from  a  chronic  though  unavowed  hunger. 
She  was  quite  aware  that  her  husband  was  in  love 
with  her,  and  she  had  married  to  oblige  him.  Then 
it  seemed  to  her  that  she  had  done  enough,  and  the 
idea  of  falling  in  love  with  him  in  return  never 
occurred  to  her.  She  did  not  make  game  of  him  to 
his  face  (though  she  did  to  her  father,  who  did  not 
mind,  once  she  was  married),  and  that,  she  thought, 
was  very  proper  in  her.  She  pretended,  on  her 
best  days,  to  be  Interested  in  the  property  and  the 
constituency;  but  she  had  many  days  that  were  not 
her  best,  and  then  she  would  listen,  but  yawn  pro- 
digiously, and  suddenly  begin  talking  of  her  dog, 
or  her  parrot,  or  a  French  novel.  When  she  was 
really  amusing — and  she  often  was — Sir  Fallows 
was  not  amused,  and  that  she  perceived  very  plainly. 

"What  a  pity  he  didn't  marry  Rachel,"  she  would 
think.  ''''She  would  never  have  puzzled  him.  No 
one  ever  heard  her  say  anything  funny,  and  I  could 
have  quarreled  with  Sir  John.  It's  no  use  quarrel- 
ing with  Pincher"  (Sir  Fallows  hadn't  liked  being 
called  "Pincher"  at  first,  but  he  had  had  to  get  used 
to  it)  "he  wouldn't  understand  it." 

One  day  a  thing  happened  that  quite  altered  the 
stagnant  condition  of  things  at  Coldacres  Park. 
Lady  Frances  came  in  from  a  drive  with  a  baby 
on  the  narrow  front  seat  of  the  brougham. 

"Take  care,  Stoger,"  she  said  to  the  butler,  as 
she  got  out  of  the  carriage,  "of  that  parcel;  there's 
a  baby  in  it.  You'd  better  send  for  RIbbits."  (Miss 
Ribblts  was  her  ladyship's  maid,  and  Lady  Frances 


288  THE  TIDEWAY 

thought  she  hated  her.)  "Ribbits,"  she  directed, 
when  that  frosty  spinster  appeared,  "take  it  up  to 
my  sitting-room,  and  don't  let  the  borzois  eat  it. 
It's  my  adopted  son;  and,  of  course,  poor  Czare- 
vitch will  know  his  nose  is  broken.  If  he  eats  it, 
you'll  be  eaten.     Is  Sir  Fallows  in?" 

*'Yes,  my  lady.  Writing  letters  in  the  li- 
brary." 

"Very  well.  I'll  come  up  in  five  minutes.  Stoger, 
has  your  wife  been  confined  lately?" 

"No,  my  lady." 

"You  don't  mean  it!  Well,  I'll  bring  it  up  by 
hand,  like  Pip  in  'Great  Expectations.'  If  you 
drop  him,  Ribbits,  I'll  know  you  did  it  on  purpose." 

"Poor  little  thing,"  said  Ribbits,  with  outraged 
femininity,  "/  shan't  drop  him." 

Lady  Frances  went  away  delighted.  "Poor  old 
Ribbits,"  she  thought,  "I  never  thought  she  had  so 
much  repartee  in  her.  I  did  drop  my  monkey,  but 
not  till  he  bit  me.  I  clove  to  him  after  he  had  bit- 
ten Stoger,  both  footmen,  and  Pincher.  And  I 
dropped  my  lamb  when  it  bulged  out  into  a  mere 
mutton.  Pincher,  I've  been  to  Cold  Swaffham,  and 
brought  back  a  new  pet.  He  won't  bite  you,  and 
he  won't  say  'Gladstone  forever,'  like  my  parrot. 
And  he  shan't  kill  two  peacocks,  like  Czarevitch. 
I'm  going  to  bring  him  up  by  hand,  like  Pip's  sis- 
ter, so  you'll  have  to  be  Joe  Gargery,  and  'ever  the 
best  of  friends,'  you  know." 

Sir  Fallows  pushed  back  his  chair  and  looked 
astonished  (he  often  had  to)  ;  but  there  was  some- 
thing unusual  in  his  wife  and  it  softened  him.  She 
was  softer.  For  all  her  queer  incoherence  and  in- 
consequence, he  could  see  she  was  in  earnest,  and 
that  her  pretty  eyes  glistened  with  a  light  that  was 
not  hard  and  mocking.  She  came  quite  near  and 
let  her  dress  touch  him,  and  looked  down  into  his 


ATHELMAR  289 

harsh  face  with  a  pucker  in  her  lips,  that  was  like 
a  promise  of  tears. 

"What  is  it?"  he  asked  shyly,  and  wondering 
what  she  would  do  if  he  laid  a  hand  of  his  on  the 
little  fingers  that  were  playing  with  the  pen  he  had 
laid  down. 

"Oh,  Pincher,  do  let  me  keep  him,"  she  begged, 
and  a  small  hot  tear  dropped  on  the  blotting  pad. 
She  had  never  asked  anything  before,  as  a  favor, 
like  that;  and  never  had  he  imagined  that  she  could 
melt  into  meekness  and  petition. 

"I  don't  know  what  it  is;  but  I  promise.  Fan, 
you  shall  keep  him." 

She  did  not  quite  look  at  him,  but  she  heard  the 
shake  in  his  voice,  and  out  of  the  corner  of  an  eye 
she  did  see  his  patient,  wistful  face. 

Was  he  hungry,  too? 

"Oh,  Pincher,  it  is  very  good  of  you.  You  are 
a  gentleman." 

"I  hope  so,"  he  said,  more  stiffly. 

"Ah,  but  it  doesn't  follow  as  you  think  it  does. 
Lots  of  men  whose  family  is  all  right  would  not 
promise,  like  that,  without  knowing.  And  this  is  a 
hard  thing.  You  will  think  it  a  hard  thing;  and, 
Pincher,  I  will  give  you  back  your  promise,  if  you 
can't  bear  it." 

"Fan,  for  heaven's  sake  tell  me  what  it  is." 

"Oh,  I  know  how  you  want  a  son"  (he  almost 
shivered  as  she  said  it),  "and  so  do  I.  Not,  like 
you,  for  the  sake  of  the  family — though  I  can't 
stand  Constantine  or  Uncle  Phil;  and  you  can't, 
though  you  don't  say  so.  But  I  want  a  baby.  And 
it  is  one.  Can  you  bear  that?  I'll  give  you  back 
your  promise " 

"A  baby!     What  do  you  mean,  Frances?" 

"Ah,  I  knew  you  couldn't!  And  oh,  I  did  want 
to  keep  it  so." 


290  THE  TIDE fV AY 

Then  she  wept.  And  she  slid  down  to  the  floor, 
and  cried  against  the  arm  of  the  chair  (with  a  grin- 
ning lion's  head  at  the  end  of  it),  and  told  him  all 
about  it. 

"I  drove  all  round  by  Cold  Swaffham,"  she  said, 
"and  somehow  I  felt  lonely.  There  was  a  gipsy- 
woman  trailing  behind  her  husband  along  the  road, 
and  she  had  a  baby  in  her  arms,  and  she  cuddled 
it  up  against  her  neck.  And  the  children  ran  in  at 
every  cottage  door  as  we  drove  past — like  little 
rabbits  into  their  burrows.  At  Swaffham  that  young 
doctor,  old  Kilham's  assistant,  came  out  of  the 
'Acres  Arms,'  and  stood  still  on  the  steps,  putting 
his  gloves  on  before  getting  into  his  dog-cart,  and 
his  face  looked  grave  and  anxious.  Pludger,  who 
keeps  the  little  inn,  was  talking  to  him,  and  I  stopped 
and  signed  to  him  to  come  to  the  carriage  window, 
but  the  doctor  thought  I  meant  him,  and  came  in- 
stead. I  asked  him  if  anybody  was  ill  in  there 
(I  saw  it  couldn't  be  Mrs.  Pludger,  her  husband 
looked  as  dismal  as  ever),  and  he  said  'Yes.'  A 
strange  lady  had  been  brought  up  from  the  train 
in  the  station  omnibus,  too  ill  to  go  on  her  journey; 
she  wasn't  traveling  to  Swaffham;  and  they  had 
taken  her  in  and  put  her  to  bed " 

"A  lady?"  Sir  Fallows  interrupted;  "really  a 
lady?" 

"Yes,  for  I  saw  her.  I  asked  the  doctor  if  I 
might,  and  he  went  back  with  me.  There's  no  doubt 
she's  a  lady,  but  very  poor;  and,  Pincher,  she  had 
a  wedding  ring,  and  her  sad,  dying  face  was  so 
good.  Yes,  she  was  dying;  I  stayed  more  than  an 
hour,  and  she  was  dead  before  I  came  away.  She 
had  grown  worse,  much  worse,  even  in  the  few 
minutes  after  the  doctor  had  left  her,  and  before 
he  came  back  with  me.  'Collapse,'  he  whispered  to 
me,  only  he  called  it  'Collops.'     He  did  what  he 


A  T HELM  A  R  291 

could,  so  did  Mrs.  Pludger;  she's  not  a  bad  woman, 
though  she  does  wear  only  velveteen  and  smells  of 
stale  beer.  He  seemed  to  think  I  could  do  no  harm; 
so  I  knelt  down  by  the  bed  and  made  him  and  Mrs. 
Pludger  go  behind  the  screen,  and  I  asked  the  poor 
lady  if  I  could  be  any  help  at  all.  She  opened  one 
hand  (the  other  arm  was  round  the  baby),  and 
there  was  about  twelve  shillings  in  it — a  half-sov- 
ereign and  some  sixpences.  She  meant  it  was  all 
she  had,  and  her  eyes  said  that  she  knew  she  was 
dying.  Then  she  tried  to  touch  the  baby  with  that 
hand,  and  I  knew  very  well  that  she  was  saying  all 
the  help  anyone  could  be  to  her  would  be  there. 
And  so  I  put  my  mouth  to  her  ear,  and  asked  if  I 
might  have  it  for  my  own.  And  I  said :  'I  am  a 
married  woman,  too;  but  I  have  no  baby.  And  I 
am  rich.'  I  know,  Pincher,  that  Pm  not — but  there 
was  no  use  puzzling  her,  and  explaining.  And  so 
I  promised  Pd  be  her  baby's  mother — and  that's 
all.  She  never  spoke,  and  now  she's  dead;  and  I 
brought  the  baby  home.  Ribbits  has  it.  I  told 
them  at  the  inn  I  should  pay  for  everything — the 
doctor,  and  the  funeral,  and  all  that.  Of  course, 
I  can  very  easily  do  that  out  of  my  own  money;  so 
I  can  for  bringing  up  the  baby — only  I  promised 
without  asking  your  leave.  And  I  know  what  a  thing 
it  is  to  ask.  It  is  a  boy  baby,  too,  and  that  makes 
it  worse.  If  you  can't  stand  it  I  shall  not  wonder; 
but,  oh!  I  should  like  to  keep  it." 

"You  mean,"  said  her  husband  gravely,  but 
gently,  too,  "that  you  want  to  adopt  it?" 

"Yes,  please;  though  it's  a  dull,  ugly  word.  I 
want  it  to  be  my  own.  She  gave  it  to  me  for  a 
present,  and  it  doesn't  belong  to  anyone  else." 

"Was  she  a  widow?     Was  she  in  mourning?" 

"Oh,  Pincher!  People  don't  wear  mourning  in 
bed — stop.      Don't  get  impatient.      I'll  answer  se- 


292  THE  TIDEWAY 

riously.  I'll  tell  the  truth;  her  clothes  weren't 
mourning  clothes.  The  linen  was  neat,  like  a  poor 
lady's,  and  every  bit  marked  'A. CM.'  Mrs. 
Pludger  said  that  the  lady  had  spoken  once,  after 
the  doctor  went  out,  and  before  he  came  back  with 
me.  She  tried  to  point  to  the  baby  and  said  'Athel- 
mar,'  and  Mrs.  Pludger  said  it  after  her  twice  or 
three  times,  to  be  sure  of  the  name,  and  asked  if 
that  was  what  she  wanted  the  baby  christened.  She 
could  just  whisper  'Yes,'  and  that  was  the  last  word 
she  ever  did  speak." 

"  'Athelmar,'  "  said  Sir  Fallows,  making  a  little 
note  in  pencil  on  a  slip  of  paper  of  the  name,  and 
of  the  initials  A. CM.,  too — "as  if,"  thought  his 
wife,  **I  should  forget  them." 

"Athelmar,"  he  observed,  "is  a  very  uncommon 
name.  It  might  be  of  importance  in  helping  us  to 
identify  the  child." 

"Oh!"  cried  Lady  Frances,  "I  hope  not.  I  want 
to  keep  him  for  my  own." 

"You  shall  keep  him  unless  they  who  have  a 
legal  claim  to  him  are  found,  and  then  it  may  be 
impossible." 

And  here  we  may  as  well  say  that  in  spite  of  all 
efforts  made  by  Sir  Fallows  and  his  lawyers,  no  one 
with  any  such  legal  claim  to  the  child  was  found; 
the  railway  ticket  which  the  dead  lady  had  pos- 
sessed was  only  for  a  great  junction  whence  lines  to 
every  part  of  England  branch  off,  and  afforded  no 
real  clue  even  to  what  had  been  her  destination. 

Over  the  stranger's  grave  in  Swaffham  church- 
yard Lady  Frances  caused  a  marble  cross  to  be 
erected,  with  this  inscription: 

To  the  Memory  of 

A.  C  M. 

A    strange    Lady    who    died    here    20th 

March,    1888,  the  Mother  of  Athelmar 


ATHELMAR  293 

March    (adopted   son   of   Lady   Frances 
Acres),  who  was  Born  on  the  same  date. 

Sir  Fallows,  when  he  read  It,  did  not  fully  ap- 
prove of  the  inscription;  for  he  thought  the  men- 
tion of  his  wife's  name  unnecessary.  But  he  never 
said  it  till  the  stone  had  been  set  up,  and  he  believed 
it  would  be  difficult  then,  if  not  impossible,  to  remove 
It — even  if  Lady  Frances  would  have  consented.  So 
there  it  stood. 

When  the  baby  was  christened  he  received  the 
name  of  Athelmar;  but  it  seemed  necessary  to  give 
him  also  some  surname  when  the  moment  for  reg- 
istering the  baptism  arrived;  and  Lady  Frances  her- 
self proposed  that  of  March,  being  the  name  of  the 
month  in  which  he  was  born.  To  this  Sir  Fallows 
made  no  objection,  and  as  Athelmar  March  the  child 
was   registered. 

Ill 

Lady  Frances  was  In  her  thirty-fifth  year  when 
she  brought  Athelmar  home  in  the  brougham;  and 
nearly  five  years  later  she  had  a  child  of  her  own — 
a  girl. 

"Now,"  thought  RIbbits,  "we  shall  see  who  drops 
the  poor  fondling"   (foundling). 

Perhaps  Sir  Fallows  himself  half  suspected  that 
his  inconsequent  wife  would  now  tire  a  little  of  her 
adopted  son,  but  she  did  not.  Her  own  baby  only 
seemed  to  teach  her  how  to  be  more  motherly  to 
the  little  boy  who  had  no  real  mother.  And  seeing 
this  made  her  husband  respect  her  more.  He  had 
perceived  long  before  that  the  coming  of  Athelmar 
had  been  a  good  thing  for  his  wife,  and  for  himself 
too.  She  must  always  be  queer  and  capricious,  but 
she  grew  gentler,  and  a  certain  hardness  and  defiance 


294  THE  TIDEWAY 

towards  the  world  and  towards  her  husband  sof- 
tened. She  never  forgot  that  evening  in  the  library 
when  he  had  told  her  she  might  keep  the  child. 
She  had  now  an  interest  in  life  that  made  her  much 
more  rarely  complain  of  the  dulness  of  Coldacres, 
and  she  gave  up  railing  against  the  stupidity  of 
neighbors  whom  her  husband  had  known  all  his  life 
— and  liked  chiefly  for  that  reason. 

"I  hope,"  she  said  one  evening,  soon  after  her 
own  baby's  birth,  "you  won't  begin  to  wish  you 
hadn't  said  I  might  keep  Toto."  ("Toto"  was  Ath- 
elmar;  she  had  nicknames  for  everybody.) 

Her  tone  was  almost  shy  and  he  could  see  she 
was  really  anxious. 

"No,  Fan.  No;  that  would  be  cruelly  unjust.  I 
never  go  back  on  my  word." 

She  was  pleased  and  laughed  a  little. 

"Well,  Pincher,  you  have  your  reward:  for  Toto 
thinks  more  of  you  than  of  me." 

Perhaps  she  would  not  have  been  pleased  had  she 
really  thought  this;  but  it  was  true  that  Athelmar 
had  a  peculiar  devotion  to  his  rather  austere-looking, 
silent  foster-father. 

"Wasn't  I  right,"  she  asked  presently,  "when  I 
told  you  Toto's  mother  was  really  a  lady?" 

"He  is  a  very  high-bred  looking  child,"  her  hus- 
band answered,  quite  understanding. 

"And  I  only  hope  Carlotta  will  be  as  pretty," 
said  Lady  Frances,  looking  down  at  her  baby's  small 
pink  face. 

"Carlotta?"  and  Sir  Fallows  almost  blushed  with 
pleasure.     "Isn't  she  to  be  another  little  Frances?" 

"No.  Certainly  not.  One  Frances  is  quite  enough 
for  you !     She's  to  be  Carlotta." 

Now,  Carlotta  was  not  only  his  own  dead  moth- 
er's name,  but  it  had  long  been  a  favorite  in  the 
Acres  family   (old  Lady  Acres  had  been  her  hus- 


ATHELMAR  295 

band's  cousin),  and  Lady  Frances  had  often  abused 
it  and  said  it  was  harsh  and  ugly.  So  he  knew  she 
meant  to  be  good  and  gracious. 

"Fan,"  he  said,  "I  should  be  very  ungrateful  to 
grow  cold  to  Athelmar — since  he  came  he  has  set 
us  all  to  rights." 

As  the  years  went  on,  troubles  of  a  kind  they 
had  never  expected  fell  on  the  Acres  family  at  Cold- 
acres  Park.  No  son  ever  followed  little  Carlotta, 
and  her  father,  anxious  to  make  better  provision  for 
her  and  his  wife,  did,  as  many  have  done,  and  acted 
unwisely  in  investments  which  were  really  specula- 
tions. There  came  a  terrible  day  when  he  knew 
that  he  was  practically  a  ruined  man — for  every 
inch  of  his  property  was  strictly  entailed — and  even 
to  meet  all  his  liabilities  he  had  to  raise  money  on 
his  own  life  interest.  And  though  he  was  not  old, 
he  was  then  as  near  sixty  as  fifty  years  of  age,  the 
doctors  who  examined  him  for  insurance  found — 
or  thought  they  found — that  he  had  organic  disease 
of  the  heart.  To  insure  at  all  he  had  to  pay  enor- 
mous premiums. 

The  jointure  settled  on  his  wife  was  safe,  but 
though  good  it  was  not  large,  and  for  his  daugh- 
ter, now  nearly  sixteen,  there  was  no  provision  ex- 
cept what  he  could  make  by  saving  and  by  insur- 
ance on  his  life. 

Lady  Frances  behaved  perfectly,  and  did  all  she 
possibly  could  to  lighten  her  husband's  trouble,  and 
to  convince  him  that  she  found  nothing  to  regret  in 
their  comparative  poverty. 

"Athelmar,"  she  declared,  "will  set  us  all  to 
rights;  and,  Pincher,  in  spite  of  those  wretched  doc- 
tors, you  will  live  another  thirty  years — another 
forty.  I  shall  ask  Dr.  Hart."  (Dr.  Hart  was  the 
gentleman  who  had  brought  Athelmar  into  the 
world.) 


296  THE  TIDEWAY 

Strange  to  say,  she  was  right  in  both  her  prophe- 
cies. Dr.  Hart  (when  she  persuaded  her  husband 
to  let  him  examine  him)  declared  that  in  his  opin- 
ion there  was  no  organic  heart-disease,  but  only  a 
functional  derangement  that  might,  and  should  be 
cured — as  a  matter  of  fact,  Sir  Fallows  is  alive  and 
well  now. 

Also  Athelmar  did  set  matters  to  rights,  though 
not  by  any  marvelous  things  achieved  by  himself.  At 
twenty  he  was  not  only  very  handsome,  with  that 
look  of  high  breeding  of  which  Sir  Fallows  had 
spoken  when  he  was  a  small  child,  but  he  was  clever 
and  his  conduct  had  always  been  excellent.  At  school 
he  had  done  very  well,  and  now  he  declared  that  he 
was  ready  to  earn  his  own  living.  Inwardly  he  re- 
solved to  do  more — and  help  his  foster-father — 
though  exactly  how  he  could  he  could  not  yet  see. 

One  morning  he  said  to  Lady  Frances:  *'If  you 
and  Sir  Fallows  will  let  me,  I  want  to  accept  a  sit- 
uation. I  have  found  it  for  myself  by  answering  an 
advertisement." 

"A  situation!     What  situation?" 

Lady  Frances  did  not  much  like  the  word,  it 
sounded  like  going  to  be  a  butler  or  a  gamekeeper. 
Sir  Fallows  was  chiefly  struck  by  the  lad's  having 
found  it  himself. 

"You've  been  very  quiet  about  it,"  he  said  smiling. 

"Well,"  Athelmar  confessed,  "I  didn't  want  to 
bother  either  of  you  till  I  saw  what  came  of  it. 
It  seemed  rather  a  bold  thing  to  offer  myself;  and 
I  could  hardly  suppose  it  likely  I  should  succeed. 
And,  after  I  had  written,  I  was  afraid  I  might  have 
done  wrong  in  writing  from  here,  with  this  address 
on  the  paper.  So  I  wrote  a  second  letter  explaining 
that,  though  I  lived  here,  I  was  no  relation  of  yours, 
but  had  been  brought  up  by  you  out  of  great  kind- 
ness." 


ATHELMAR  297 

"Well!  What  is  the  'situation'?"  asked  Lady 
Frances  impatiently.  Carlotta  was  listening  eagerly, 
but  kept  quiet.  In  looks  she  resembled  her  mother, 
but  in  character  she  had  more  of  her  father's  sober 
restraint. 

"Private  secretary  to  a  gentleman  in  Paris,"  an- 
swered Athelmar.  "At  least,  he  writes  from  Paris 
— I  don't  know  where  else  he  lives.  But  he  asks 
me  now  to  meet  him  in  London.  There  is  his 
letter." 

It  was  written  in  the  third  person,  and  said  that 
Lord  de  Valence  would  be  glad  to  have  a  personal 
interview  with  Mr.  Athelmar  March  at  the  Lang- 
ham  Hotel  in  London  on  Thursday,  22nd  March, 
at  1 1  A.M.  If  the  interview  proved  satisfactory. 
Lord  de  Valence  thought  it  probable  that  Mr. 
March  would  become  a  member  of  Lord  de  Va- 
lence's family. 

"And  is  this,"  asked  Sir  Fallows,  "his  first  letter 
to  you?" 

"No.  He  wrote  before,  in  answer  to  my  first, 
asking  a  number  of  questions  (which  I  answered), 
and  saying  that  the  salary  would  be  £200  a  year. 
Doesn't  it  seem  a  lot?" 

"Private  secretaries  to  wealthy  men  sometimes 
get  much  more ;  but  they  are  not  often  so  young  as 
you.     Does  he  know  your  age?" 

"Yes.  He  asked  the  date  and  place  of  my  birth, 
where  I  was  educated,  what  my  father's  position 
and  calling  had  been,  my  state  of  health,  height,  and 
description — also  I  had  to  send  a  photograph.  May 
I  go  up  to  London  to  see  him?" 

"Yes,  but  I  shall  go  with  you.  You  cannot  sat- 
isfy him  as  to  your  character  so  well  as  I  can.  And 
I  must  also  satisfy  myself  as  to  his.  I  admire  very 
much  your  determination  to  earn  your  own  living 
at  the  earliest  possible  moment,  but  we  must  be  sure 


298  THE  TIDEWAY 

that  this  stranger  is  a  man  fit  for  us  to  entrust  our 
son  to." 

Lady  Frances  was  truly  pleased,  and  Athelmar 
was  even  more  so. 

"By  the  way,"  Sir  Fallows  asked,  "did  you  tell 
him  you  were  an  adopted  son?" 

"No,  I  had  no  right  to  say  that.  I  only  said 
how  you  had  brought  me  up,  and  educated  me,  and 
done  everything  for  me  from  the  day  of  my  birth." 

After  breakfast  Sir  Fallows  withdrew  to  the  li- 
brary and  there  he  consulted  a  Peerage,  but  of  that 
he  said  nothing  to  his  wife  or  to  Athelmar.  The 
reference  he  looked  up  was  to  the  name  of  Lord  de 
Valence. 

It  ran  as  follows:  De  Valence,  Baron  Aymer  de 
Valence,  nth  Lord  de  Valence,  of  Court  Valence, 
Hereford,  b.  2^d  March,  i860,  succeeded  his  uncle 
Athelmar,  lOthLord,  gth  April,  1888,  m.  20th  May, 
1887,  Alice  Clare,  d.  of  late  Rev..  Henry  Marlow. 
Heir  presumptive,  his  cousin,  Capt.  Aymer  Hum- 
phrey de  Valence,  iiith  Lancers,  s.  Rev.  Humphrey 
Athelmar  de  Valence,  2,1'd  ^on  of  <)th  Lord. 

Somewhat  to  her  surprise  and  much  to  her  pleas- 
ure, Sir  Fallows  told  his  wife  that  she  had  better 
go  to  London  with  him  and  Athelmar. 

"If  I  find  nothing  objectionable  in  this  man,"  he 
said,  "I  shall  ask  him  to  meet  you.  /  can  speak 
warmly  in  praise  of  the  lad,  but  you  can  be  eloquent." 

"He  asked  you  about  your  parentage,"  Sir  Fal- 
lows remarked  casually  to  Athelmar.  "What  did 
you  tell  him?" 

"All  I  knew;  that  is,  "nothing  as  to  my  father; 
as  to  my  mother,  that  Lady  Frances  knew  her  for 
a  lady,  that  her  initials  were  A.  C.  M.,  and  that 
her  ring  had  a  date  engraved  inside  it:  2Cth  May, 
1887.  Also  I  said  that  it  was  by  her  direction  I 
received  the  name  of  Athelmar,  and  that  March 


ATHELMAR  299 

was  given  me  for  a  surname  because  I  had  none 
and  was  born  in  that  month.  I  thought  I  ought  to 
tell  him  all  I  knew." 

"Perhaps  you're  right." 

"Did  you  tell  him,"  laughed  Lady  Frances,  "that 
/  only  call  you  Toto?" 

"No,  I  didn't,"  and  Athelmar  laughed  too. 

IV 

At  the  Langham  Hotel,  on  the  22nd,  Sir  Fallows 
sent  up  his  own  card  with  Athelmar's  name  penciled 
on  it;  and  he  was  not  surprised  to  receive  a  message 
that  Lord  de  Valence  would  wish  to  see  him  first 
alone.  He  found  the  nobleman  looking  older  than 
his  forty-eight  years  warranted — very  dark,  rather 
handsome,  with  an  irritable  expression  of  face,  and 
a  sort  of  rough,  but  imperious  manner,  such  as  col- 
onists often  have  who  have  lived  much  with  people 
of  inferior  race.  Still,  he  was  very  civil,  and  cour- 
teously thanked  Sir  Fallows  for  taking  the  trouble 
to  come  to  him. 

"Of  course  I  came,"  said  the  baronet  simply. 
"Athelmar  has  been  like  a  son  to  us;  and  though  I 
respect  his  resolve  to  earn  his  own  living,  now  he 
is  grown  up,  we  could  not  let  him  leave  us  unless 
we  were  satisfied  that  he  was  acting  wisely." 

"You  are  very  straightforward." 

"So  is  he.  There  are  few  good  things  I  could 
not  truthfully  say  of  him.  Of  course,  he  can  bring 
you  no  testimonials  as  to  capacity;  for  at  his  age, 
it  would  be  impossible  that  he  should  have  any  ex- 
perience; but  I  may  say  that  he  has  been  very  use- 
ful of  late  to  me " 

"Never  mind  all  that.  Just  tell  me  all  you  know 
about  him — about  his  antecedents." 

"He  seems  to  have  told  you  all  that  is  known." 


300  THE  TIDEWAY 

"Would  you  mind  telling  it  all  again.  I  do  not 
ask  out  of  idle  curiosity.  His  name  is  a  rare  one — 
and  it  is  my  own." 

"Is  not  your  name  Aymer?" 

"Aymer  and  Athelmar  are  the  same  name.  One 
a  French  form,  the  other  Latin.  In  our  family  the 
eldest  son  is  usually  called  by  it — in  one  form  or 
the  other;  and  generally  the  form  is  alternated  in 
each  successive  generation;  my  father's  was  Athel- 
mar, his  father's  was  Aymer,  like  myself.  I  will 
ask  you  an  abrupt  question.  Does  your  foster-son 
resemble  me?" 

"You  may  judge  for  yourself  presently — but  I  see 
no  resemblance.  He  is  very  fair,  with  clear  blue 
eyes,  and  a  brilliant  complexion." 

"Perhaps  he  is  like  his  mother." 

"I  never  saw  her.  But  Lady  Frances  says  he  is 
like  her." 

Then  Sir  Fallows  told  again  the  whole  story  of 
Athelmar's  birth;  in  doing  so  he  often  quoted  his 
wife  verbatim,  and  once  he  spoke  of  the  baby  as 
Toto,  which  nickname  Lady  Frances  had  from  the 
very  first  day  given  rim. 

"  'Toto;  who's  'Toto'?"  asked  Lord  de  Valence 
abruptly. 

"It  was  a  name  my  wife  gave  the  child,  and  one 
she  did  not  invent;  among  the  few  things  left  behind 
by  'A. CM.'  was  only  one  scrap  of  paper,  a  torn  bit 
of  a  letter  beginning  'Darling  Toto,' — written  in  a 
woman's  hand,  and  with  only  a  few  words  besides — 
as  if  the  writer  had  begun  a  letter  and  abruptly 
ceased;  it  was  in  the  dead  lady's  pocket,  and  perhaps 
was  written  in  the  train;  there  was  no  date  or 
heading,  and  the  penciled  writing  was  shaky  and 
distorted." 

"Toto  was  my  wife's  pet  name   for  me.    .     .     . 
Now  do  you  guess  anything?" 


AT  HELM AR  301 

"I  never  guess.  But  I  am  here  partly  because  I 
wondered " 

"I  thought  so.  I  can  explain  nothing  now;  I  am 
on  pins  and  needles  to  see  him;  but  this  I  will  say : 
though  I  am  now  a  very  rich  man,  I  was  penniless 
when  I  married — nor  was  I  a  lord — or  a  lord's 
heir;  my  uncle's  own  son  was  living;  alas,  he  killed 
himself — and  his  father,  too,  in  doing  so,  wretched 
lad!  I  was  in  pursuit  of  him  to  try  and  save  him 
and  came  up  a  day  too  late;  he  was  in  Australia, 
whither  he  had  fled  to  escape  public  disgrace.  And 
I  had  left  my  poor  wife  in  anger.  She  was  wrongly 
jealous  and  accused  me  bitterly  and  falsely.  And 
I  would  explain  nothing,  but  gave  way  to  my  appal- 
ling temper;  there  was  a  bitter  quarrel,  and  she 
said  she  would  go  back  to  her  own  people — but  that 
I  know  she  did  not.  She  was  silly  and  savage,  and 
I  was  savage  and  brutal.  It  is  a  long  and  sad  and 
miserable  story — but  you  cannot  hear  it  now.  I 
want  to  see  Athelmar." 

The  lad  was  sent  for,  and,  as  he  entered  the  room, 
Lord  de  Valence  said  in  a  low  voice  to  Sir  Fallows : 
"There  is  no  doubt  at  all.  He  is  Alice's  son,"  and 
he  turned  away  into  a  window,  leaving  the  youth 
standing,  half  troubled,  in  the  middle  of  the  room. 

Coming  back.  Lord  de  Valence  went  up  to  Athel- 
mar, and  took  his  hand,  but  the  left  one;  holding  it 
in  his  own  right,  he  pushed  up  the  sleeve  and  said : 

"Did  none  of  you  notice  this?" 

"Of  course,  it  has  always  been  noticed." 

A  little  higher  than  the  wrist  there  was  a  mark 
like  a  bruise,  a  V,  as  if  made  by  two  pinching 
fingers. 

And  Lord  de  Valence  thrust  up  the  left  sleeve  of 
his  own  shirt  and  coat  and  showed  another  mark 
like  it. 

"Now,"   he   asked,   almost  laughing,   but   eager. 


302  THE  TIDEWAY 

"can  you  say  Calisthenics,  Esthetics,  Esthonic,  Sos- 
thenes." 

Considerably  astonished,  Athelmar  repeated: 

"Calis-sosthenics,  .^s-s-thetics,  Es-s-sthonia,  Sos- 
-s-sthenes." 

"It  is  rude  to  imitate  people!"  laughed  Lord  de 
Valence.     "Can't  you  say  them  without  lisping?" 

"'I  don't  lisp,"  cried  Athelmar,  quite  indignantly. 

"Nor  do  I,  except  in  words  where  th  follows  an  s. 
But  you  do  there.  So  we  all  do.  Sir  Fallows,  you 
deny  that  he  Is  like  me,  but  Isn't  his  mouth  like  mine, 
and  also  his  ears?  Look  what  a  queer  crumple  they 
have.  I'm  not  cracked,  Athelmar,  and  you  needn't 
be  afraid  Sir  Fallows  is  going  to  let  you  become 
private  secretary  to  a  lunatic.  When  I  wrote  to 
you  I  said  that  if  this  interview  was  satisfactory  you 
would  probably " 

He  paused.  Intending,  I  think,  to  be  interrupted. 

"Be  engaged  as  your  private  secretary,"  sug- 
gested Athelmar. 

"Did  I  say  that?  I  think  not.  I  did  not  promise 
that." 

Sir  Fallows  smiled,  though  Athelmar  looked  dis- 
appointed. 

"No,  Athelmar,"  said  Sir  Fallows,  "Lord  de 
Valence  did  not  promise  that.  What  he  said  was 
that,  if  this  interview  was  satisfactory,  you  would 
probably  become  a  member  of  his  family.  I  noted 
the  expression.  But,  Lord  de  Valence,  if  you  will 
allow  me,  I  would  suggest  that  at  this  moment  we 
should  all  go  and  join  Lady  Frances  at  luncheon; 
she  will  be  of  more  use  to  you  than  myself." 

And  they  went. 

V 

Lord  de  Valence  not  only  went  to  luncheon  with 
Sir  Fallows  and  Lady  Frances,  but  went  down  with 


ATHELMAR  30^ 


J 


them  and  Athelmar  to  Coldacres  Park  that  same 
afternoon.  There  he  was  shown  the  very  few  ar- 
ticles that  had  belonged  to  Athelmar's  mother — her 
clothes,  the  scrap  of  an  unfinished  letter,  and  her 
wedding  ring. 

"I  did  not  need  to  see  them,"  he  said.  "I  was  cer- 
tain Athelmar  was  her  son  the  moment  I  saw  him. 
His  voice  is  my  own,  but  his  face  and  figure  are 
hers — and  it  is  not  an  ordinary  face.  I  can  identify 
this  ring  with  the  date  of  our  marriage  on  it,  and 
each  of  these  poor  bits  of  clothing;  they  are  marked 
with  initials  of  her  maiden  name,  because  ours  was 
a  sort  of  runaway  match,  and  she  never  had  any 
trousseau.  Certainly  the  scrap  of  a  letter  is  in  her 
writing,  and  I  treasure  it,  because  it  shows  that  she 
had  forgiven  me — little  as  she  had  time  to  write 
before  her  great  illness  fell  on  her;  you  can  see 
yourself  that  that  little  scrap  is  a  message  of  recon- 
ciliation. I  have  had  my  twenty  years  of  purga- 
tory for  my  fault — now  from  beyond  the  grave 
comes  this  message  of  forgiveness.  Now  I  may 
tell  Athelmar." 

Athelmar  was  told.  Lord  de  Valence  did  not  en- 
gage his  services  as  private  secretary,  but  he  did 
take  him  as  a  member  of  his  family. 

"I  am,"  his  father  told  Sir  Fallows,  "a  very  rich 
man;  not  because  I  am  Lord  de  Valence,  for  our 
family  had  long  been  rather  poor,  but  because  for 
twenty  years  I  have  been  making  money.  I  could 
not  bear  England  after  returning  here  and  failing 
to  find  my  wife,  and  I  have  lived  entirely  abroad. 
I  had  nothing  else  to  do  but  make  money,  and  I 
made  it  all  the  while — the  more  readily  perhaps 
that  I  did  not  care  much  whether  I  made  it  or  no. 
Some  people's  speculations  fail"  (Sir  Fallows 
sighed)   "because  it  matters  so  much  to  them;  mine 


304  THE  TIDEWAY 

always  succeeded  because  it  did  not  seem  to  mat- 
ter at  all.    Athelmar  will  be  very  rich." 

And  so  he  was.  At  five  and  twenty  he  succeeded 
his  father,  and  long  before  that  he  had  married. 

Sir  Fallows  had  no  further  anxiety  as  to  Car- 
lotta's  future. 

Athelmar's  wife  needed  no  provision  from  her 
father,  and  her  husband  so  managed  matters  that 
she  was  able  to  pay  off  every  claim  and  every  en- 
cumbrance on  her  father's  life  income. 

"The  best  thing  you  ever  did,"  Sir  Fallows  told 
his  wife,  "was  bringing  Athelmar  home,  and  the 
best  I  ever  did  was  saying  you  might  keep  him." 

"Oh,  Pincher,"  she  said,  "supposing  I  hadn't 
driven  round  by  Swaffham  that  day — if  I  hadn't 
seen  that  young  doctor  on  the  steps  outside  the 
"Acres  Arms"  and  been  a  woman  who  always  asks 
questions ;  Athelmar  would  have  been  taken  to  the 
workhouse,  and  been  brought  up  a  pauper.  How 
awful  to  think  of — what  a  chance  saved  him!" 

"Chance,  Fan?     Providence,  rather." 


FRING 
I 

FOR  twenty  years  Miss  Fring  had  lived  at  Burn- 
ham  Abbey  and  she  could  no  longer  imagine 
herself  living  anywhere  else.  All  the  same  she  had 
only  come  for  three  or  four  months,  and  the  rea- 
son of  her  coming  at  all  was  like  this — Lady  Julia 
Fitzrupert,  whose  husband,  Sir  Rupert  Fitzrupert, 
owned  Burnham  Abbey  and  Burnham  village,  and  all 
the  lands  that  had  long  ago  belonged  to  the  Abbess 
of  Burnham,  was,  as  we  all  know,  sister  of  Lady 
St.  Blazes,  down  in  Cornwall :  and  Lord  St.  Blazes 
suddenly  resolved  to  economize.  It  had  never  oc- 
curred to  any  of  his  family  for  several  generations : 
and  it  might  not  have  occurred  to  him  had  not  the 
inventor  of  Pearl  Soap  been  seized  with  a  strong 
desire  to  live  at  Blaze  Castle.  He  offered  (through 
the  family  lawyer)  such  an  enormous  rent  that  it 
seemed,  said  Lady  St.  Blazes  solemnly,  a  DUTY 
to  accept. 

"You  know,  Babbo,"  she  argued  with  a  sudden 
sense  of  financial  insight,  "we  have  always  spent 
more  than  we  had:  that  77iust  mean  debt.  If  we  let 
this  place  to  the  soap  man  we  shall  he  actually  get- 
ting more  than  we  spend"  (her  husband  shook  his 
head,  not  as  impeaching  the  justice  of  her  position, 
but  dazed  by  it)  "and  that  must  mean  getting  out 
of  debt.  If  you  get  ten  pounds  a  day  and  spend 
twelve  pounds  ten  you  get  into  debt  two  pounds  ten 
every  day.  If  you  get  fifteen  pounds  a  day  and  only 
spend  ten,  you're  getting  out  of  debt  at  the  rate  of 
five  pounds  a  day — you  can't  deny  it." 

Lord  St.  Blazes  knew  he  couldn't. 

"But,  Totes,"  (her  ladyship  was  christened 
Giralda)    he   asked   dubiously,    "where    are   we   to 

305 


3o6  THE  TIDEWAY 

live?  We  can't  live  in  London  all  the  year  round. 
No  one  could.  Even  if  Sixteen  wasn't  a  tight  fit 
for  us  with  all  the  girls  grown  up." 

When  anyone  at  Blaze  Castle  talked  of  Sixteen 
he  meant  i6  Buccleugh  Square,  as  proper  a  place 
for  a  poor  peer  to  live  as  any  in  London,  though 
the  houses  were  thin — "tall  and  squeezy,  like  Aunt 
Carlotta,"  the  young  St.  Blazes  ladies  called  them. 

"No,"  agreed  Lady  St.  Blazes,  "no  one  could 
expect  us  to  live  all  the  year  round  at  Sixteen :  not 
if  we  owed  millions.  But  we  needn't.  There's 
Melbourne." 

No  one  at  Blaze  Castle  meant  by  Melbourne  the 
capital  of  Victoria,  but  a  small  property  of  that 
name  belonging  to  her  ladyship.  It,  a  set  of  fine 
emeralds,  two  silver  soup  tureens  (one  of  which 
didn't  leak),  five  bedroom  candlesticks  of  the  same 
metal,  and  nine  or  ten  family  portraits,  had  been 
her  dowry — though  an  earl's  daughter  she  had  so 
many  sisters. 

"Melbourne!"  observed  her  husband,  without 
enthusiasm. 

"It's  small — "   she   conceded  cheerfully. 

"About  as  big  as  this  room,"  said  Lord  St. 
Blazes,  less  cheerfully:  but  then  the  White  Saloon 
at  Blaze  Castle  was  one  hundred  and  twenty-four 
feet  long;  and  no  fires  on  earth  would  ever  warm  it 
in  an  east  wind. 

"It's  small,"  continued  her  ladyship,  "but  it  isn't 
ugly:  and  it's  a  Grange:  there's  no  harm  in  living 
in  a  Grange — one's  notepaper  wouldn't  disgrace 
one.  I  shouldn't  care  to  live  in  a  tiny  Hall — that 
would  be  vulgar:  a  Hall  should  be  ENORMOUS 
or  it's  nothing.  Its  smallness  will  be  our  salvation. 
If  we  let  the  soap  man  come  here  we  not  only  get 
the  rent  (and  to  refuse  that  would  be  like  evading 
Providence)  but  he  will  have  this  place  to  keep  up 


FRING  307 

instead  of  us.  And  at  Melbourne  we  can't  spend 
much." 

"/  could  if  I  tried,"  said  her  husband  with 
gloomy  candor.  "1  could  spend  thirty  thousand  a 
year  in  a — Chambers  De  Broke  did." 

"De  Broke  is  a  misery,  and  so's  she.  I'm  not, 
and  you're  not.  Come,  Babbo !  Here's  our 
chance :  live  on  here,  and  we  can't  cut  down  any- 
thing— the  place  won't  let  us.  But  now  there's  this 
new  departure  opened  up — let's  do  it:  for  the  chil- 
dren's sakes;  and  oh,  Babbo,  I'm  sick  of  Billy!" 

"So  am  I!"  said  the  Viscount,  whose  legislative 
duties  sometimes  bored  him :  all  the  same  he  was 
touched.  He  dearly  loved  his  wife,  and  his  chil- 
dren, and  his  home:  and  for  the  sake  of  all  three 
he  would  let  a  rather  vulgar  stranger  come  and  live 
in  the  house  that  no  one  but  the  St.  Blazes  had  ever 
lived  in  yet. 

Lady  St.  Blazes  wrote  to  Lady  Julia  Fitzrupert 
— in  her  huge,  sanguine,  happy-go-lucky,  good- 
natured  handwriting,  that  used  up  reams  and  reams 
of  notepaper  every  year: 

Blaze  Castle, 

Thursday. 
Dear  Judie, 

That  man  who  makes  Pearl  Soap  (it  smells 
like  Ratafia  Pudding,  so  I  can't  stand  it)  is 
going  to  take  this  place,  and  we  shall  live  at 
16  and  Melbourne.  So  we  shall  congedier 
two  footmen,  and  two  kitchen-maids,  four 
housemaids,  both  scullery-maids,  and  some  of 
our  own  maids.  We're  going  abroad  first, 
for  three  months,  and  it  would  be  quite  absurd 
for  each  of  the  girls  to  have  a  maid  to  herself. 
Of  course,  Flunce  will  come  (no  one  else  could 
make   me   wake   in   a   morning)    and    Button. 


3o8  THE  TIDEWAY 

They've  been  with  us  ten  years,  and  would 
break  their  hearts  without  each  other  to 
quarrel  with.  But  Lacy  and  Ribb  are  new, 
and  we  must  get  rid  of  them.  While  we're 
abroad  Flunce  and  Button  will  have  to  man- 
age for  the  girls  between  them.  Then  there's 
Fring;  you  say  your  creature  must  go  at  once 
or  there'll  be  bloodshed  in  your  halls,  and  im- 
plore me  to  find  you  someone.  Take  Fring 
as  a  loan;  she's  excellent;  most  honest,  civil 
and  respectful  (but  not  too  dreadfully;  she 
doesn't  say  "my  lady"  at  every  comma)  ;  very 
well  conducted  (a  Roman  Catholic),  and  been 
in  good  places.  She  can  dressmake  very  well, 
and  is  not  talkative.  Our  neighbors,  the  Pol- 
welliams,  have  a  chapel  in  the  house,  and  she 
goes  there — do  let  her  go  to  Mass  if  you  can. 
Babbo  has  a  cold  in  his  head,  and  sends  his 
love.  Your  affec, 

Totes. 

Lady  Fitzrupert  sent  a  telegram — she  never  had 
any  stamps,  and  the  telegrams  went  into  the  butler's 
book : 

Send    your   treasure   and  I'll  pay    her   back 
honor  bright. 

JUDIE. 

II 

So  Fring  went  to  Burnham  Abbey  and  liked  it. 
At  first  she  didn't,  because  she  came  as  a  stopgap, 
and  the  housekeeper,  butler  and  valet  (like  Miss 
Nipper)  suspected  Temporaries.  But  Miss  Fring, 
they  found,  leant  to  permanence  and  was  gentility 
personified.     Mrs.  Stumger,  the  housekeeper,  liked 


FRING  309 

to  talk  (and  so  had  the  late  lady's  maid) ,  Miss  Fring 
preferred  listening.  Mrs.  Stumger  confessed  to  her 
own  conscience,  though  not  elsewhere,  that  she  "had 
never  lived  higher  than  a  baronet,"  whereas  Miss 
Fring's  lowliest  place  till  now  had  been  a  Viscount — 
there  had  been  a  Marquis,  and  a  Duchess  (though 
Italian),  and  yet  she  never  bragged  of  them.  Here 
was  true  restraint  and  gentility — Sellars,  the  butler, 
never  wearied  of  the  Earl  (and  only  a  Scotch  one) 
that  had  been  his  last  place.  Sellars  and  Braces  (the 
valet)  conceived  a  high  opinion  of  Miss  Fring  be- 
cause they  could  not  in  the  least  perceive  that  she 
was  a  favorite  with  her  ladyship.  Sir  Rupert  was 
"short"  with  his  butler,  and  not  sweet  with  his  valet, 
whereas  Tucker  (the  late  lady's  maid)  had  been  for 
ever  quoting  the  intimate  and  jocular  sayings  of  my 
lady  to  her.  Miss  Fring  never  had  much  to  tell  of 
Lady  Fitzrupert,  and  Sellars  and  Braces  cheerfully 
concluded  that  it  was  because  her  ladyship  only  took 
her  on  sufferance.  And  they  were  not  altogether 
wrong.  Lady  Fitzrupert  thought  Fring  dullish;  and, 
as  she  had  only  come  for  three  months,  it  was  hardly 
worth  while  making  out  If  there  was  anything  par- 
ticular behind.  Fring  was  plain;  and  her  manner 
was  plain,  too,  demure,  sober,  not  shy,  but  self-con- 
tained; at  five  and  twenty  she  was  as  staid  as  a 
woman  of  forty.  Lady  Fitzrupert  liked  to  say  queer 
things,  and  Tucker  had  thoroughly  enjoyed  them  and 
loved  to  repeat  them.  Fring  heard  them  with  a  sub- 
dued air  of  refusing  to  be  surprised  and  didn't  even 
laugh. 

"Will  your  ladyship  wear  any  ornaments  to- 
night?" she  would  ask,  almost  absent-mindedly,  a 
moment  after  her  mistress  had  said  something  funny, 
which  would  have  filled  Tucker  with  impatience  to 
be  off  to  "the  room"  to  retail  it — with  (imagined) 
improvements.      And   not   a   soul   in   all    Burnhani 


310  THE  TIDEWAY 

Abbey  would  have  guessed  why  Fring  was  absent- 
minded. 

"She's  all  Totes  promised,"  Lady  Fitzrupert 
would  admit  to  herself,  "as  respectable  as  a  hearse 
and  six  horses,  honest,  clean,  tidy,  careful,  a  won- 
derful dressmaker,  respectful,  good-tempered — and 
no  more  idea  of  a  joke  than  a  stone  ball  on  a  lodge 

But  the  positive  good  qualities  were  so  undeniable 
that  Fring  stayed  twenty  years.  When  the  St. 
Blazes  returned  to  England  Lady  St.  Blaze  wrote  to 
her  sister  and  said:  "The  girls  have  picked  up  a 
Frenchwoman,  who  has  broken  Flunce  and  Button's 
noses.  You  can  keep  Fring,  if  you  like.  Babbo 
sends  his  love,  he  has  a  housemaid's  knee,  or  he 
would  write  himself;  he  got  it  in  the  Coliseum  tum- 
bling out  of  the  place  where  the  Emperors  used  to 
sit,  while  he  was  standing  back  to  say  'Ave  Caesar 
moritim  te  Salubant.'  It  won't  get  well,  and  he 
won't  try  a  bonesetter.  An  Italian  prince  wanted  to 
marry  Juliet,  but  she  said  his  name  wasn't  Romeo, 
and  she  didn't  see  any  point  In  it.  If  you  don't  want 
to  keep  Fring,  Lady  de  Ribstone  wants  her." 

"Then  she  won't  get  her,"  said  Lady  Fitzrupert, 
who  couldn't  abide  any  of  the  Pepin  family,  and  felt 
quite  sure  that,  if  Fring  went  to  Appleshaw  Court, 
old  Lady  de  Ribstone  would  try  and  pump  her  about 
Burnham  Abbey  and  Its  ways.  "And  she  might  as 
well,"  Lady  Fitzrupert  confessed  to  herself,  can- 
didly, "try  to  pump  the  Pontine  Marshes." 

So  Fring  stayed  on,  and  stealthily  grew  Into  a 
permanency. 

Ill 

Nobody  at  Burnham  Abbey  had  the  slightest  idea 
why  Miss  Fring  was  absent-minded,  and  at  last  she 


FRING  311 

didn't  know  herself.  She  did  at  first.  She  had  mis- 
givings about  her  soul. 

In  the  first  instance  she  would  never  have  gone 
there  had  she  not  understood  that  she  was  to 
be  sent  to  Mass  on  all  Sundays  and  days  of  ob- 
ligation. 

She  went  the  first  Sunday  after  her  arrival.  A 
Cabinet  Minister  was  staying  in  the  house,  and  on 
Saturday  night  he  received  a  command  to  dine  with 
the  Sovereign  on  Monday;  but  the  Queen  was  in 
Scotland,  and  he  would  have  to  go  to  London  to 
pick  up  his  court  dress,  and  that  meant  catching  the 
only  morning  train  from  Saltminster  at  10.50  on 
Sunday.  A  brougham  took  him;  but  there  was  a 
luggage  cart  to  take  his  things  and  his  valet,  and 
Lady  Fitzrupert  (with  a  brilliant  stroke  of  relevance 
and  recollection)  told  Fring  at  11. 15  on  Saturday 
night,  that  it  could  take  her  to  Mass,  too. 

"Thank  you,  my  lady,"  said  Fring,  "it's  but  a  lit- 
tle place,  Saltminster;  I  wonder  when  Mass  is?" 

"Oh,  Mass  goes  on  all  the  time  from  sunrise. 
I've  been  abroad.  I  often  said  Mass.  At  Mainz 
there  was  a  High  Mass  at  each  end  and  little  Masses 
all  round.    You  could  hear  eleven  at  once." 

"There'd  be  a  many  priests  there  .  .  ."  observed 
Fring. 

"Oh,  baskets  of  them:  they  sang  through  their 
noses " 

Fring  was  not  impressed  by  the  circumstance,  at 
all  events  it  did  not  convince  her  that  there  would  be 
a  long  succession  of  Masses  at  Saltminster. 

"I've  seen  the  Saltminster  priest,"  her  ladyship 
went  on,  "he  never  wears  anything  but  a  tophat. 
You  go  in  with  Lord  John's  man  and  let  him  drop 
you  at  the  corner  of  Ox  Row,  it's  not  five  minutes 
from  there  to  Fiddle  Street  where  the  Catholic 
church    is,    you'll    get   there   by   half-past   ten — or 


312  THE  TIDEWAY 

twenty  to  eleven.  Probably  the  service  is  at  eleven. 
Even  if  it's  at  half-past  ten  you'll  be  in  time,  for  the 
priest  has  to  go  round  first  mailing  aspersions  on  the 
people,  as  our  French  governess  used  to  say." 

Well,  Fring  went,  and  didn't  arrive  till  quarter  to 
eleven,  and  the  Mass  was  at  ten;  so  she  was  rather 
late.    ' 

On  the  following  Sunday  Lady  Fitzrupert  was  on 
a  short  visit  at  Beansite,  where  the  Duke  was  enter- 
taining their  Serene  Highnesses  the  Prince  and 
Princess  of  Reannfels-Hinterlangonbach,  and  of 
course  she  took  her  maid  with  her.  The  park  at 
Beansite  is  so  big  that  the  nearest  village  is  seven 
miles  off — and  the  nearest  town  is  eight  miles  further 
on.  Even  there  there  is  no  Catholic  church,  though 
there  are  nine  Nonconformist  chapels. 

On  the  Sunday  after  that  Fring  borrowed  a  bi- 
cycle (they  were  nothing  like  so  common  then,  and 
she  had  no  great  proficiency  in  riding  them).  She 
got  to  Mass  in  time,  but  arrived  at  Burnham  Abbey 
on  her  return  with  a  black  eye  and  no  skin  on  her 
nose,  having  collided  with  a  telegraph  post  and  been 
shot  off  on  to  a  heap  of  newly-broken  granite  stones 
for  road  mending. 

"My  goodness,"  cried  Lady  Fitzrupert,  "if  they 
black  your  eyes  at  Mass " 

But  Fring  was  so  deeply  hurt  by  this  jocund  con- 
dolence that  her  mistress  stopped  laughing  and  said: 

"You  shall  have  the  dog-cart  next  Sunday,  and 
Thomas  shall  drive  you  in.  Fll  speak  to  Sir  Rupert 
about  it  in  good  time." 

She  really  meant  it,  only  the  horse  belonging  to 
the  dog-cart  was  seriously  indisposed  on  the  follow- 
ing Sunday,  and  Thomas  considered  it  would  be  as 
good  as  "killing  of  him  in  gold  blood"  to  put  him 
in  the  shafts. 


FRING 


313 


The  Sunday  after  that  Sir  Rupert,  my  lady,  Mr. 
Braces  and  Miss  Fring  were  all  at  Dudlow  Manor 
to  see  the  Honorable  Maria  Duddle  married,  on 
Monday  morning,  to  Captain  Shikker,  the  great 
sportsman  and  oriental  traveler. 

"Fring,"  said  Lady  Fitzrupert  on  Saturday  night 
while  being  dressed  for  dinner,  "I  asked  Lady  Dud- 
low about  Mass,  and  she  nearly  had  a  fit — thinking 
I  had  turned  Catholic  like  a  thief  in  the  night.  But 
there's  no  Catholic  church  anywhere  about  here  now 
— I  told  you  there  was,  and  so  there  used  to  be : 
Catesby  House  is  only  a  mile  away,  but  it  seems  Sir 
Guy  Fawkes-Catesby  has  let  Catesby  to  some  sewing- 
machine  people  (American  and  Pilgrim  Fathers,  no 
doubt)  and  the  chapel  is  shut  up." 

It  Is  not  necessary  to  explain  exactly  how  it  was 
that  Fring  hardly  ever  could  get  to  Mass:  and  it 
would  be  sad  to  explain  how  gradually  she  came  to 
give  up  trying.  You  must  remember  that  I  am  not 
asking  you  to  believe  she  was  a  young  woman  of 
determined  character  or  of  intense  piety.  She  was 
honest,  respectable,  well-conducted,  not  vain,  nor  un- 
truthful, not  light-minded:  but  she  was  not  eagerly 
devout  and  all  her  surroundings  were  placidly  pagan. 
From  week's  end  to  week's  end  she  neither  saw  nor 
heard  anything  whatever  to  remind  her  of  her  re- 
ligion: and  her  disposition  was  spongily  receptive. 
Without  being  quick  to  receive  new  impressions  she 
slowly  absorbed  the  influences  that  pressed  upon  her 
as  intangibly  as  an  atmosphere.  At  first  she  had  felt 
a  dull  misgiving  of  losing  her  faith,  but  when  she 
was  really  losing  it  she  had  ceased  to  notice. 

If  you  do  not  think  her  story  worth  attention  I 
will  ask  you  to  remember  that  it  is  that  of  hundreds 
and  hundreds  of  Catholic  servants  in  non-Catholic 
houses  up  and  down  England. 


314  THE  TIDEWAY 

IV 

When  the  St.  Blazes  came  back  from  the  Con- 
tinent not  three  months  after  Fring  went  to  Burn- 
ham  Abbey,  but  seven,  there  was  her  opportunity; 
but  she  missed  it.  Had  they  returned  four  months 
earlier  she  might  have  seized  it.  But  she  had  been 
at  Burnham  more  than  half  a  year  and  was  used  to 
it:  she  liked  her  mistress  much  better  than  Lady 
Fitzrupert  Imagined,  and  she  also  liked  Mr.  Braces. 
This  is  not  going  to  be  a  romance  of  the  house- 
keeper's room,  and  I  may  say  at  once  that  nothing 
came  of  Fring's  silent  and  shy  admiration  for  the 
sparkling  Mr.  Braces.  He  was  quite  unaware  of 
it,  besides  he  was  engaged  (not  Impatiently)  to  a 
Mrs.  Scraper,  who  was  trying  the  experiment  of  a 
small  boarding  house  at  Coldport-on-Sands,  and 
when  it  turned  out  a  success,  he,  in  due  course,  mar- 
ried her.  Fring  bore  no  malice  and  subscribed  thirty 
shillings  to  the  electro-plated  teapot,  milk-jug  and 
sugar  basin  that  the  upper  servants  at  Burnham  pre- 
sented him. 

Still  when,  three  years  earlier.  Lady  Fitzrupert 
had  said  to  her,  "Fring,  will  you  stay  on  here,  or  go 
to  Lady  de  Ribstone?"  the  thought  of  Mr.  Braces 
had  not  been  without  influence. 

"I  don't  like  changes,  my  lady,"  Fring  had  re- 
plied calmly. 

The  attractions  that  held  her  to  Burnham  Abbey 
were  not  all  romantic :  the  place  was  thoroughly  com- 
fortable, and  Fring  liked  comfort.  She  was  not 
greedy,  but  she  enjoyed  good  eating:  her  wages  were 
high,  and  her  mistress  was  generous ;  her  own  room 
was  uncommonly  pleasant  and  had  a  fire  all  day  In 
winter,  spring  and  autumn;  and  the  housekeeper's 
room  was  the  most  comfortable  room  in  the 
house. 


FRING  3 1 5 

Oddly  enough  there  was  one  thing  at  Burnham 
that  reminded  Fring  now  and  then  of  her  religion; 
the  only  Catholic  who  ever  showed  his  nose  there 
was  an  Irishman  who  came  at  rare  intervals  to  buy 
rabbit  skins,  but  Fring  had  nothing  to  do  with  rab- 
bit skins  and  seldom  saw  him.  She  didn't  want  to, 
his  calling  was  low,  and  it  annoyed  her  that  he 
should  be  associated  with  her  religion.  But  Burn- 
ham  was  an  Abbey,  and  the  name  gave  her  a  sort  of 
smack  from  time  to  time.  Strange  to  say,  it  was 
not  so  at  first:  she  had  lived  there  for  many  years 
without  thinking  of  it. 

It  began  in  this  way :  Lady  Fitzrupert  bought  all 
manner  of  old  things,  warming-pans,  door-knockers, 
chairs  with  no  bottoms,  and  so  on ;  and  one  day  she 
came  back  from  Saltminster  with  a  crozier  sticking 
out  of  the  window  of  the  brougham.  It  was  wooden 
and  gilt,  and  had  belonged  to  a  statue. 

"I'd  have  bought  the  statue,  too,  Fring,  and  given 
him  to  you.  But  it  was  St.  Joseph,  and  he  finds  peo- 
ple husbands — I  thought  of  it  in  time;  and  he  was 
six  feet  high  in  his  nimbus,  and  wouldn't  go  on  your 
chimneypiece."  (She  was  wrong  about  his  being  St. 
Joseph,  he  was  St.  Patrick.)  "So  I  let  a  dealer  get 
him  for  three  pound  seven,  and  gave  him  five  and 
twenty  shillings  for  the  crozier." 

"But,  my  lady,  you  can't  wear  it." 

"No.  But  that  didn't  stop  me  buying  the  copper 
warming-pan,  nor  the  spinet  with  no  Insides.  Isn't 
it  pretty?  And  quite  the  proper  thing  for  an  Abbey. 
I  shall  pretend  we  dug  it  up." 

Mrs.  Stumger  saw  the  crozier  In  the  Green  Draw- 
ing-room and  didn't  approve  of  it. 

"It's  enough,"  she  told  Fring,  "to  bring  one  of 
them  old  Abbesses  out  of  their  graves  to  look  for 
it.  There  are  no  ruins  here,  thanks  to  glory,  but 
the  bowlin'  green  was  the  old  buryin'  ground,  and 


3i6  THE  TIDEWAY 

there's  them  as  have  seen  what  /  could  never  abear 
to." 

"What?"  asked  Fring,  with  awe  and  eagerness 
combined  in  pleasant  proportions. 

"Nuns,"  answered  Stumger,  poking  the  fire  and 
looking  over  her  left  shoulder  (at  the  jam  cup- 
board). 

From  that  out,  as  they  say  in  Ireland,  Fring  never 
completely  forgot  it  was  an  abbey,  and  the  idea  of 
nuns  would  now  and  then  occur  to  her — not  com- 
fortably. 

"Did  the  Fitzruperts  turn  the  nuns  out?"  she  once 
asked  Mrs.  Stumger. 

"No.  It  was  before  their  time.  They're  from 
the  Stuart  times,  this  fam'ly;  they  got  Burnham  by  a 
marriage.  Seymour  was  the  name,  I  think,  of  the 
gent  that  old  King  Harry  gave  this  place  to.  Or  else 
it  was  King  Edward.     Anyway,  Seymours  got  it." 

"And  what  came  of  the  nuns?" 

"They  were  sent  to  the  right  about.  The  Abbess 
died  under  the  big  yew  near  where  the  lodge  is — she 
was  as  old  as  sin,  but  an  'armless  woman,  of  titled 
fam'ly,  and  it  was  winter  (Christmas  Eve,  I've  heard 
say)  when  they  carried  her  from  her  bed  all  in  a  lit- 
ter (and  no  wonder,  not  expecting  it),  but  she  died 
under  the  big  yew,  and  they  say  her  spirit  ran  back 
to  the  Abbey — folks  saw  her,  her  black  gown  show- 
ing up  on  the  snow  in  the  moonlight.  She's  one  that 
walks,  or  used  to.  And  if  I  was  my  lady  I  wouldn't 
bring  croziers  In  the  house  to  give  her  something  to 
come  for." 

Fring  sincerely  hoped  she  would  never  see  her. 
In  ghosts  she  believed  with  reluctant  firmness.  Why 
on  earth  couldn't  Burnham  be  a  Castle,  or  a  Court, 
or  a  Hall,  or  a  Manor — anything  but  an  Abbey? 

She  kept  oftener  and  oftener  remembering  that 
it  was  an  Abbey,  and  why.    Over  and  over  again  she 


FRING  317 

thought  she  saw  a  black-robed  figure  lurking  in  a 
corner  of  the  long  gallery;  and  though  it  always 
proved  to  be  a  shadow,  the  next  time  she  was  equally 
sure  it  was  a  real  figure. 

At  last,  and  no  wonder,  she  began  to  dream  of  the 
figure.  One  evening,  in  a  foggy  dusk,  her  mistress 
said: 

"Fring,  I  must  have  dropped  my  little  gilt  bag  on 
the  bowling-green  before  tea.  It's  the  only  place  I 
stood  about  at,  go  and  look  for  it,  please." 

The  moon  was  just  up,  and  there  were  long 
shadows;  the  grass  looked  white  in  the  wan  light. 
Fring  found  the  bag,  but  was  sure  she  had  seen  the 
black  figure  motionless  under  a  broken  cedar  tree. 

That  night  she  dreamt;  and  in  her  dream  she  sat 
up  in  bed,  sure  that  someone  was  in  the  room,  and 
stared  about  to  look  for  it.  Out  of  the  shadow  by 
the  door  it  came  quietly  into  the  dying  glow  of  the 
pleasant  fire;  a  black-gowned  figure  holding  my 
lady's  crozier,  and  pausing,  and  peering,  as  though 
searching  for  something — some  little  thing,  for  it 
stooped,  and  groped,  as  if  the  thing  were  too  small 
to  find  easily. 

"Oh,  ma'am.  Oh,  my  lady — what  is  it?  What 
are  you  looking  for?"  wailed  poor  Fring  in  her 
dream.  "There's  nothing  here  but  what  belongs 
to  me ;  /  never  took  any  of  your  things ;  nor  any- 
body's things.  You'll  find  nought  here  but  what's 
mine." 

"Yes,  it's  yours,"  said  a  voice,  very  old  and  weak 
and  patient,  "and  I'm  trying  to  find  it.  But  it's 
grown  so  little — if  I  can't  find  it,  and  give  it  back 
to  you,  you'll  lose  it  out  and  out.  It'll  be  clean 
gone,  and  there'll  be  an  end  of  it." 

"Never  mind  it,  ma'am,  my  lady,"  pleaded 
Fring,  in  her  dream.  "Don't  you  trouble.  I  shall 
never  miss  it — maybe  I'll  get  another." 


3i8  THE  TIDEWAY 

"No.  That  you  never  can.  You've  only  one 
and  it's  growing  smaller,  and  smaller,  and  smaller; 
and  being  smothered " 

"Oh,  my  lady,  ma'am,  what  is  it?" 

"Your  soul.  .  .  ." 

And  then  Fring  awoke,  crying  bitterly,  and  the 
pleasant  cosy  room,  with  a  good  fire  blazing  still, 
and  thick  curtains  and  good  furniture,  had  never 
looked  homelier;  but  it  was  long  before  Fring  could 
go  to  sleep  again,  she  was  in  such  dread  of  dream- 
ing that  horrible  dream  over  again;  yet  it  was  worse 
lying  awake,  for  that  had  only  been  a  dream,  and 
she  was  in  a  nervous  terror  of  seeing  something 
with  her  waking  eyes. 

Twice  afterwards,  a  week  later  and  two  weeks 
later,  the  dream  came  back,  though  never  again  did 
the  nun  with  the  crozier  say  anything.  There  was 
no  need.  Fring  knew  very  well  what  the  little  thing 
was  for  which  she  was  looking — peering  and  stoop- 

After  the  third  time  Fring  made  up  her  mind. 

"My  lady.  If  you  please,"  she  said  to  her  mis- 
tress, "I'd  like  to  leave." 

"Fring!"  cried  Lady  Fitzrupert,  quite  indig- 
nantly, as  If  Fring  had  said  something  disrespectful. 

"I  do  beg  your  pardon,  my  lady,"  wailed  poor 
Fring.  "You've  been  a  kind  mistress,  and  you've 
never  known  how  truly  fond  of  you  I've  been  for 
many  many  years — from  the  first,  I  think.  But 
there's  a  little  thing  I  have  of  my  own,  and,  oh,  I 
shall  lose  it  if  I  stay  here " 

"Lose  it?  Lose  what?"  demanded  her  lady- 
ship, staring  with  unfeigned  astonishment. 

Fring  was  very  earnest  not  to  tell,  but  her  mis- 
tress was  determined  to  be  told,  and  she  was  a  far 
more  obstinate  woman.  Of  course,  Fring  told  her 
at  last — had  she  said  nothing  about  her  dreams  I 


FRING  319 

think  Lady  Fitzrupert  would  have  laughed;  but  the 
whimpering  old  woman's  maid  did  tell  about  them, 
and  her  mistress  was  extremely  superstitious.  Any 
religion  she  had  was  a  singular  mixture  picked  up 
out  of  all  sorts  of  books,  a  kind  of  bric-a-brac,  not 
at  all  useful,  and  not  worth  very  much.  But  she 
was  ready  for  any  superstition.  She  would  not 
believe  anything  because  God  had  revealed  it,  but 
she  would  believe  any  odd  story  told  on  the  au- 
thority of  somebody's  aunt  or  somebody's  cousin's 
gamekeeper.  Also  she  was  good-natured,  and  she 
saw  very  clearly  that  Fring  was  "all  to  pieces";  be- 
sides, she  was  no  longer  young  herself,  and  a 
younger  person  about  her  would  be  more  cheerful. 

"Well,"  she  declared  at  last,  "if  you  do  go  I  can 
give  you  an  excellent  character." 

"Thank  you,  my  lady,  but  I  wasn't  thinking  of 
taking  another  situation — not  at  present." 

What  she  did  was  to  become  a  lay-sister  in  the 
very  Order  to  which  the  Burnham  nuns  had  be- 
longed :  and  there  she  is  still,  much  respected  and 
placidly  happy. 

"Dreams  and  omens,  and  such-like  fooleries," 
she  sometimes  says  to  herself,  "no  doubt  they're 
fooleries :  but  God  don't  fish  for  fools  with  wise- 
folk's  bait;  and  p'raps  He  condescends  to  teach  a 
body  that  can't  be  taught  wisdom  any  better  way 
by  means  even  of  a  foolery," 

As  to  whether  the  moral  of  this  story  is  good  or 
bad,  you  must  make  up  your  mind  for  yourself. 

Personally  I  lean  to  Fring's  opinion. 


HER  LADYSHIP 
I 

WHEN  Doris  Hepworth  announced  her  inten- 
tion of  earning  her  own  living  as  a  school- 
mistress the  Hepworth  family  was  deeply  scandal- 
ized— much  more  loudly  so  than  when  her  Uncle 
Varloman  took  to  drink;  but  then  he  did  not  pre- 
cisely announce  the  circumstance — it  announced  it- 
self. The  Hepworths  were  genteel,  and  it  is  not 
genteel  to  become  a  schoolmistress,  and  teach  vil- 
lage children  reading,  writing,  arithmetic,  and  such 
other  subjects  as  the  School  Board  in  its  inscrutable 
wisdom  declared  to  be  necessary  for  future  plow- 
boys  and  their  sisters — such  as  chemistry  and  com- 
position. 

They  did  not  go  so  far  as  to  assert  that  it  is 
genteel  to  addict  one's  self  to  habitual  inebriety, 
but  instances  of  it  had  occurred  In  families  even 
more  well  connected  than  their  own :  whereas  Board 
schoolmistresses  were  unheard  of  in  the  pedigrees 
of  any  family  that  had  pedigrees.  Added  to  which, 
they  saw  no  reason  why  Doris  should  earn  her  own 
living  at  all.  Her  father  was  alive  and  held  the 
respectable  post  of  principal  assistant  junior  clerk 
in  the  Waterways  Department  of  the  Board  of  In- 
land Communications.  The  secretary  of  the  de- 
partment was  Sir  HIgham  Pitcher,  and  even  the 
assistant  secretary  had  married  an  honorable — the 
Honorable  Terentia  Marples,  seventh  daughter  of 
Lord  Strathtidlem.  The  office  of  the  Board,  as 
everyone  knows,  is  In  Whitehall,  and  all  its  mem- 
bers hold  their  noses  aloft,  and  duly  despise  all  such 
civil  servants  as  have  their  offices  in  Somerset 
House  or  on  the  Embankment. 

32Q 


HER  LADYSHIP  321 

True,  Mr.  Hepworth's  salary  was  not  large,  and 
his  family  was;  or  perhaps  we  should  say  each  of 
his  families  was — for  he  had  been  twice  a  widower, 
and  had  twice  ceased  to  be  one,  and  none  of  the 
three  Mrs.  Hepworths  had  been  denied  the  blessing 
of  offspring. 

It  is  fair  to  say  that  Mr.  Hepworth  himself  saw 
nothing  scandalous  in  his  eldest  daughter's  deter- 
mination to  earn  her  own  bread  and  butter;  it  was 
chiefly  her  aunts  and  her  late  mother's  aunts  who 
were  shocked  at  her  doing  so. 

Miss  Adeliza  Hepworth  complained  most,  and 
with  most  right,  as  she  was  the  wealthiest  member 
of  the  fiviiily,  and  held  more  state  than  any  of  the 
others.  She  lived  by  herself  in  a  small  chilly  coun- 
try-house called  Billings  Court,  where  she  had 
ample  leisure  to  survey  her  own  gentility  and  to 
alter  her  will  whenever  any  of  her  kindred  annoyed 
her.  If  it  had  occurred  to  her  to  invite  her  niece  to 
come  and  live  with  her  she  might  have  been  less 
lonely,  and  possibly  Doris  would  never  have  been 
a  schoolmistress;  but  that  idea  never  entered  what 
she  was  pleased  to  call  her  head.  She  preferred  to 
scan  the  imperfections  of  her  relations  from  afar, 
and  point  out  their  deficiencies  through  the  penny 
post. 

She  duly  wrote  to  her  brother — to  Doris  she 
never  intended  to  write  any  more — and  explained 
that  his  daughter  was  taking  a  step  which  would  ren- 
der it  impossible  for  her,  Adeliza,  to  retain  any  fur- 
ther cognizance  of  her  existence,  and  darkly  alluded 
to  four  hundred  pounds  which  would  now  be  devoted 
to  the  endowment  of  a  cats'  cemetery. 

"To  bury  herself  in,  I  suppose,"  observed  Mr. 
Hepworth,  and  his  own  wit  put  him  in,  so  good  a 
temper  that  he  gave  Doris  ten  pounds  as  a  parting 
present. 


322  THE  TIDEWAY 

His  wife,  however,  took  Aunt  Adeliza's  part; 
her  step-daughter's  decision  to  go  forth  and  work 
for  her  bread  she  took  as  a  reflection  on  herself. 

"Well,  my  dear,"  her  husband  urged,  "I  can't 
live  forever,  and  /  can  leave  Doris  nothing:  she 
might  have  to  go  out  as  a  governess — and  she  pre- 
fers being  independent.  Besides,  it's  easier  begin- 
ning young,  while  one  is  stll  energetic." 

"She  might  marry.  Robert  Skewpole  has  an  eye 
on  her,  I'm  certain." 

"That's  more  than  I  would  dare  to  say — he 
squints  so,  there's  no  saying  what  his  eye's  on." 

"Reginald,  pray!  We  needn't  all  be  vulgar, 
even  if  one  of  your  daughters  is  going  to  be  a 
schoolmistress." 

Mr.  Hepworth  warmed  his  gloves,  and  went  off 
to  the  Waterways;  and  in  due  time  Doris  went 
away  to  take  up  her  first  appointment. 

We  need  not  follow  her  long  career  step  by  step. 
It  will  be  enough  to  say  that  by  the  time  she  was 
six-and-twenty  she  had  a  school  of  her  own,  in  the 
remote  Fenshire  village  of  Cold  Overton. 

Her  adventures  had  not  been  hitherto  exciting, 
but  neither  had  she  been  unhappy.  Her  health  was 
good,  and  her  disposition  cheerful;  she  made  no 
great  demands  of  life,  and  Fate  had  not  persecuted 
her — Fate  is  probably  too  aristocratic  to  trouble 
herself  about  schoolmistresses. 

She  was  slim  and  active,  with  a  neat  figure,  and 
a  face  that  boasted  no  wonderful  beauty,  but  was 
far  from  being  insignificant;  her  skin  was  as  smooth 
as  that  of  a  peach,  her  dark  grey  eyes  were  large, 
intelligent  and  thoughtful,  her  mouth  suggested 
sweet  temper,  even  when  she  was  not  smiling,  and 
her  smile  was  very  pleasant.  Perhaps  her  hair  was 
her  strong  point — it  was  of  a  rich  auburn  brown, 
and  very  abundant,  soft  and  shining,  and  she  did 


HER  LADYSHIP  323 

not  neglect  It.  She  wore  It  In  a  manner  that  suited 
her,  and  her  dress  was  always  neat  and  dainty, 
though  quiet  and  Inexpensive. 

When  she  had  settled  herself  Into  the  cottage  at- 
tached to  the  schoolhouse,  she  felt  as  though  she 
had  now  fixed  herself  for  life,  and  she  mildly 
thanked  Heaven  that  she  had  so  little  to  com- 
plain of. 

The  cottage  was  not  pretty  outside,  but  It  was 
comfortable  and  convenient  within,  and  she  had 
taste  enough  to  make  It  look  like  the  home  of  a 
lady.  Her  books  lined  nearly  the  whole  of  one 
wall,  and  stood  on  shelves  she  had  made  herself; 
her  pictures  were  of  her  own  painting,  and  had  been 
framed  by  herself,  and  the  curtains  were  embroid- 
ered by  her  own  hands,  too. 

Cold  Overton  is  a  long  village,  consisting  of  one 
winding  street,  at  one  end  of  which  Is  the  church 
and  the  vicarage  at  the  other  end  Is  the  school. 
All  round  are  flat  fens,  over  which  the  mists 
from  the  sea,  three  miles  off,  are  apt  to  creep 
when  the  short  winter  day  turns  from  leaden  grey 
to  black. 

"I'm  glad  there  are  shutters,"  Doris  said  to  her- 
self; "they  make  It  twice  as  warm."  She  put 
another  piece  of  wood  on  the  fire,  and  her  cat, 
Tudor,  smiled  to  himself  as  he  lay  on  the  warm  rug, 
and  thought  complacently  of  less  well-to-do  cats 
that  had  to  search  the  hedges  for  sleeping  birds  If 
they  wanted  any  supper. 

The  log  burned  with  a  blue  flare,  for  it  was  a  bit 
of  ship's  timber,  and  tarry — Doris  had  bought  a 
small  load  of  it  from  a  certain  Moses  who  came 
round  with  a  donkey  cart  on  which  he  sat  with  his 
wooden  leg  cocked  out  in  front  ol  him  like  the 
bowsprit  of  a  little  vessel. 

Doris    was    knitting    and    her    eyes    occasionally 


324  THE  TIDEWAY 

wandered  to  the  fire,  and  the  blue  flame  made  her 
think  of  ships  and  the  sea. 

"I  hope  it  wasn't  a  wreck,"  she  thought  to  her- 
self. "God  help  all  on  the  sea  to-night."  For  the 
wind  was  keen  and  cold  outside,  and  sometimes  the 
blast  would  smack  at  the  shutters,  or  even  whistle  in 
at  a  keyhole  as  though  saying:  "Let  me  in!  Come 
now!     I  want  company!" 

But  Doris,  instead  of  letting  him  in,  stuffed  the 
keyhole  with  flannel  list,  and  let  him  carry  his  com- 
plaints elsewhere.  So  he  ran  away  across  the  flats 
to  sea,  and  whistled  fiercely  in  the  rigging  of  any 
ships  he  could  find,  and  Doris  sat  warm  and  snug 
by  her  fireside,  while  Tudor  purred  approvingly. 

So  far  as  Doris  could  see  she  would  sit  there 
night  after  night,  through  all  that  winter,  and  all 
the  winters  of,  say,  the  next  fifty  years.  And  she 
had  not  the  least  objection.  She  was  not  ambitious, 
and  she  liked  her  work;  it  was  not  useless,  and  If 
it  was  not  highly  paid,  it  yielded  her  all  she  wanted. 
Smart  clothes,  fine  feeding  and  "society"  w'ere  as 
far  outside  the  scope  of  her  desires  as  they  were 
beyond  her  reach.  She  told  herself  flatly  that  she 
was  an  old  maid;  it  was  merely  a  question  of  time, 
and  she  had  no  intention  of  interfering  with  what 
time  would  bring  about.  She  drew  her  chair  a  little 
nearer  to  the  comfortable  red  fire,  and  wondered 
how  Mr.  Drumble  spent  his  evenings. 

Mr,  Drumble  was  the  vicar  and  there  was  no 
Mrs.  Drumble ;  so  that  the  sagacious  reader  may 
perhaps  say  that  Doris  would  not  have  wondered 
how  he  spent  his  evenings  had  she  really  been  in 
earnest  about  being  an  old  maid — at  six-and-twenty, 
too!  But  then  Mr.  Drumble  was  about  as  old  as 
her  father  and  was  a  leathery  person,  with  a  beard 
of  half  a  dozen  different  shades  of  dingy  grey.  The 
reader  must  take  my  word  for  it  that  Doris  Hep- 


HER  LADYSHIP  325 

worth  had  not  the  least  idea  of  becoming  Mrs. 
Drumble.  She  merely  wondered  how  his  evenings 
were  spent  because  he  was  the  only  person  of  her 
own  class  within  a  radius  of  four  miles,  because  he 
lived  alone,  like  herself,  and  because,  somehow,  he 
did  not  give  her  the  idea  of  being  a  man  specially 
addicted  to  reading. 

As  it  happened  he  was  at  that  moment  wonder- 
ing how  Doris  spent  her  evenings;  he  knew  she  was 
a  lady,  and  he  did  not  for  a  moment  suppose  she 
would  make  friends  or  companions  of  any  of  the 
village  folk.  He  told  himself  that  it  was  a  pity, 
for  her  sake,  he  was  a  bachelor;  had  there  been 
any  Mrs.  Drumble  he  and  that  lady  might  have 
been  neighborly. 

Strange  to  say,  Mr.  Drumble  and  Miss  Hep- 
worth  were  both  of  them  being  discussed  by  Mrs. 
Bagg,  of  the  post-office,  on  whom  Mrs.  Diggle,  the 
sexton's  wife,  had  dropped  in  for  a  chat. 

"There,"  said  Mrs.  Bagg,  "him  a  bachelor  and 
her  a 'single  lady — and  well  born,  as  anyone  can 
see — it's  a  pity  they  don't  make  a  match  of  it.  It 
would  be  company  for  them." 

"Very  like  they  will.  What  strikes  you  and  me, 
Mrs.  Baggs,  may  strike  them  as  well.  'Twould  be 
a  good  thing  for  his  linen — I'm  sure  his  cuffs  are  as 
furry  round  the  edges.  And  his  hankershers  are  as 
holey  as  one  of  the  prophets." 

"And  there'd  be  an  end  of  reading  at  his  meals — 
cruel  for  the  digestion.  Well,  I  wish  her  good 
luck,  and  him  too." 

About  three  weeks  after  this  Mr.  Drumble's  sis- 
ter came  on  a  visit,  and  he  took  the  opportunity  of 
"being  neighborly."  Miss  Hepworth  was  invited 
half  a  dozen  times  to  supper,  and  she  made  a  good 
impression  on  Miss  Acacia  Drumble — her  Chris- 
tian name  was  the  only  ridiculous  thing  about  her. 


326  THE  TIDEWAY 

"Well,  Acacia,"  said  the  gentleman  one  night, 
on  returning  to  the  drawing-room  after  escorting 
their  visitor  to  the  door,  "it  seems  very  snug  in 
here;  there's  a  biting  wind  outside,  and  I  felt  quite 
inhospitable  when  I  shut  Miss  Hepworth  out." 

"You  ought  to  have  walked  home  with 
her." 

"Oh,  I  don't  know.  Village  people  are  such 
talkers." 

"Or  you  should  have  asked  her  to  stop." 

"Asked  her  to  stop!" 

"Yes — to  stop  for  good.     You  have  often  asked 


me." 


Yes.     Why  won't  you?" 

Because  I  should  feel  bound  to  stay  here  for- 


u 
u 


ever. 


And  that's  just  what  you  ought  to  do.  That's 
what  I  meant  by  stopping  for  good." 

"Exactly.  But  I  can't.  Philip,  I'm  going  to  be 
married." 

"Good  gracious!" 

"Yes,   I'm  engaged  to  be  married." 

"Goodness!  And  why  did  you  not  tell  me  be- 
fore?    You've  been  here  a  fortnight." 

"Twelve  days.  But  I  have  only  been  engaged 
since  five  o'clock." 

"Since  five  o'clock!  Nobody  was  here  at  five 
o'clock  except  Solomon  Baggs,  the  postman,  and 
he's  married  already." 

"It  Isn't  Solomon  Baggs;  but  he  brought  me  a 
second  post  letter  and  he  waited  in  the  kitchen  while 
I  wrote  the  answer.  The  answer  was  'Yes,'  and 
I'm  engaged  to  Captain  Eustace,  whom  I  have  men- 
tioned to  you  pretty  often." 

"Him!  I  think  you  have.  You  said,  I  think, 
that  he  was  not  handsome." 

"Handsome  is  as  handsome  does.     He's  about  as 


HER  LADYSHIP  327 

good-looking  as  I  am.  You'd  better  follow  my  ex- 
ample." 

"/  can't  accept  Captain  Eustace." 

"You  can  give  Miss  Hepworth  the  chance  of  ac- 
cepting you." 

Unfortunately  he  gave  the  chance  too  soon. 
He  thought  it  over,  and  next  day,  without  consult- 
ing his  sister  further,  suggested  mildly  to  Miss  Hep- 
worth  that  it  would  be  very  kind  of  her  if  she  would 
become   Mrs.   Drumble. 

"It's  no  good,"  he  informed  Acacia  at  tea  time. 
"She  doesn't  seem  to  care  about  it." 

"Care  about  what?  Care  about  what?  Who 
doesn't  seem  to?" 

"Miss  Hepworth,  of  course.  There's  no  one 
else.  I  asked  her  and  she  was  very  nice  about  it, 
very  nice,  indeed.     But  it's  no  good  at  all." 

"Good  gracious,  Philip!  You  don't  mean  to  say 
you  asked  her  to-day.  You  should  have  waited; 
no  wonder  she  made  up  her  mind  at  once." 

"Why,  you  seemed  to  think  I  should  have  asked 
her  last  night." 

"Oh  dear,  what  foolish  creatures  men  are!" 

"Captain  Eustace  is  a  man." 

"If  he  had  asked  me  like  that — but  he  waited 
three  months  and  let  me  see  what  was  coming.  You 
don't  suppose  his  letter  surprised  me.  I  could  stay 
here  six  week — if  you'd  gone  on  having  Miss  Hep- 
worth here  you  might  have  asked  her  during  my 
last  week.  How  awkward !  I  suppose  I  shall  feel 
bound  to  go  away  now,  and  you'll  have  a  schoolmis- 
tress like  the  last  one,  who  sang  all  the  hymns  flat 
and  smacked  the  children." 

"No.  She  won't  go  away;  I  begged  her  not  to. 
I  begged  her  to  think  no  more  of  what  I  had  said. 
'It  was  merely  an  idea  of  mine — and  of  my  sister's,' 
I  told  her.     'Pray  think  no  more  of  it — /  shan't.'  " 


328  THE  TIDEJVAY 

"Good  gracious!  And  you  dragged  me  in,  too. 
I  have  no  patience  with  men.  The  older  they 
are  the  sillier." 

II 

To  do  him  justice  Dr.  Drumble  did  seem  to 
"think  no  more  of  it."  And  Doris  did  not  find  her 
position  had  been  made  embarrassing.  She  con- 
tinued in  charge  of  the  school  at  Cold  Overton,  and 
gave  everybody  complete  satisfaction.  Mrs.  Baggs 
and  Mrs.  Diggle  still  thought  she  and  the  Vicar 
ought  to  make  a  match  of  it,  but  they  were  leisurely 
people  themselves  and  were  content  to  give  them 
time. 

The  winter  merged  with  chill  deliberation  into 
spring;  spring  presently  warmed  itself  into  summer; 
autumn  soon  laid  summer  by  the  heels,  and  then 
the  long,  windy,  foggy  winter  set  in  on  the  fens  once 
more,  and  Cold  Overton  justified  its  name. 

Doris  found  her  snug  cottage  very  pleasant  in 
the  long  firelit  evenings,  and  she  never  felt  them 
over  long,  for  she  had  taken  to  writing,  and  had 
achieved  more  moderate  success  than  falls  to  ninety 
out  of  every  hundred  who  make  the  attempt. 
Within  the  last  twelve  months  she  had  earned  as 
much  by  her  pen  as  her  whole  salary  came  to,  and 
she  found  she  could  write  best  in  winter;  she  was 
sure  of  being  free  from  interruption  during  the 
long  hours  between  tea  and  bed-time. 

Tudor  did  not  wholly  approve  of  this  writing — 
it  occasioned  a  certain  unpunctuality  in  the  matter 
of  supper;  and  Tudor  liked  his  meals  regular. 

One  evening  Doris,  with  her  little  table  close  to 
the  warm  hearth,  was  busy  with  her  pen,  which  was 
taking  a  higher  flight  than  usual. 

"I  hope  nobody  who  has  been  in  a  shipwreck  will 


HER  LADYSHIP  329 

read  this,"  she  thought  to  herself.  "I  can't  say  I 
regret  not  having  been  In  one  myself.  I  wish  that 
loose  bough  would  not  knock  at  the  shutter  so — it's 
jnuch  too  cold  to  go  out  and  see  to  it." 

But  the  knock  came  again — not  at  the  shutter 
this  time,  but  at  the  door,  and  Doris  had  to  get  up 
and  go  to  it. 

"I  beg  your  pardon,"  said  the  stranger  whom  she 
found  on  the  doorstep.  "I  knocked  at  the  first 
door  I  came  to.  I'm  nearly  frozen,  and  I  wanted 
a  warm ;  but  really,  I  beg  your  pardon,  the  wind  has 
blown  your  candle  out." 

So  it  had;  but  there  was  a  splendid  fire,  and  the 
cosy  room  was  full  of  warm  light. 

"Come  in,"  Doris  said,  without  hesitation,  and 
the  stranger  walked  in  without  waiting  to  be  asked 
twice.  His  thick  outer  coat  was  drenched,  and  the 
rain  dripped  from  the  hat  he  took  from  his  head. 

Doris  shut  the  door,  and  whilst  she  lighted  the 
candle  again,  bade  him  warm  himself. 

"Take  your  overcoat  oft  and  hang  it  to  the  fire," 
she  said  in  a  business-like  manner,  and  the  stranger 
obeyed,  to  the  extreme  annoyance  of  Tudor,  who 
didn't  like  to  be  dripped  on. 

"They  told  me  at  Sandmouth  that  the  vicarage 
was  the  first  house  in  cold  weather,"  the  stranger 
explained,  "but  I'm  sure  I  took  a  wrong  turn,  and 
I  suppose  I've  arrived  at  the  wrong  end  of  your 
village.  I'm  coming  to  stay  with  Mr.  Drumble, 
he's  my  uncle.  There  is  only  one  fly  in  Sandmouth 
and  It  has  gone  to  a  dinner  party  five  miles  away,  so 
I  walked  it." 

"If  Mr.  Drumble  expects  you,  he'll  be  anxious 
perhaps." 

"No,  he  won't.  For  I  was  to  come  to-morrow. 
But  my  ship  got  In  a  day  early,  so  I  came  on." 

He  had  not  said  he  was  a  sailor,  but  he  looked 


330  THE  TIDEWAY 

like  one,  and  Doris  lifted  up  her  little  table  bodily 
and  put  it  away  in  a  corner.  It  made  her  shy  to 
think  of  her  amateurish  account  of  a  shipwreck 
being  so  close  under  the  nose  of  a  sailor. 

"I'm  a  frightful  nuisance  to  you,"  he  went  on 
cheerfully.  "You  were  writing,  and  I've  interrupted 
the  flow  of  your  ideas!  But  really  I  was  frozen.  It 
was  a  downright  charity  to  let  me  come  in  and 
thaw  myself." 

"I'll  make  you  a  cup  of  tea ;  the  kettle  is  boiling, 
you  see." 

"It  would  be  awfully  good  of  you.  But  I'm 
spoiling  the  writing." 

"The  writing  will  keep.  In  fact,  I  had  just  got  to 
a  sticking  place." 

The  stranger  laughed  comfortably. 

"Who  was  in  trouble?  he  asked,  "the  hero  or  the 
heroine?  I  hope  it  wasn't  the  lady.  Men  are  used 
to  it.  Born  to  it,  you  know,  as  the  sparks  fly  up- 
wards." 

He  did  not  look  as  if  his  own  troubles  had 
weighed  heavily  on  him.  He  was,  perhaps,  a  year 
older  than  Doris;  tall,  straight,  comely,  with  a  bright 
eye  that  seemed  full  of  healthy  merriment.  His 
manner  was  frank  and  free,  but  not  free  and  easy; 
on  the  contrary  it  was  plain  enough  that  he  was 
well-bred  and  used  to  the  company  of  well-bred 
people.  His  features  were  refined  though  strong, 
and  the  hands  he  held  out  to  the  fire  were  those  of 
a  gentleman,  finely  shaped,  if  rather  large.  His  voice 
was  pleasant,  and  the  tones  clear,  but  not  over 
loud. 

"I  think  I  ought  to  tell  you  my  name,"  he  re- 
marked smiling,  "dropping  down  incognito  like  this. 
I  am,  as  I  said,  Mr.  Drumble's  nephew,  and  I  am 
Sir  Ralph  Berwick." 

"My  name,"  the  young  lady  explained,  "is  Doris 
Hepworth,  and  I  am  the  schoolmistress." 


HER  LADYSHIP  331 

"Doris  Hepworth !  I've  read  yarns  by  you !  Rat- 
tling good  yarns,  too.  I  read  one  in  the  train  to-day 
and  now  I  have  interrupted  you  in  the  thick  of 
another." 

"Perhaps,"  said  Doris  laughing,  "it  was  providen- 
tial. "I  was  describing  a  shipwreck  and  hoping  no 
one  would  read  it  who  had  ever  been  in  one.  Fate 
may  have  sent  you  to  tell  me  all  about  it." 

At  that  moment  another  knock  came  at  the  door 
and  Sir  Ralph  Berwick  looked  as  little  pleased  as 
Tudor  had  been  at  his  own  arrival. 

It  was  Mr.  Drumble  himself. 

"Good  evening,"  he  said  as  soon  as  the  door 
was  opened  and  without  coming  in.  "I  came  down 
to  tell  you  that  two  of  the  little  Baggs  have  devel- 
oped measles  and  I  think  we  shall  have  to  close  the 
school  for  a  week  or  so,  till  we  know  if  any  more 
cases  appear." 

"Come  in,"  said  Doris.  "It  is  much  too  cold  for 
you  to  stand  talking  in  that  wind,  and  I've  a  visitor 
that  belongs  to  you." 

Sir  Ralph,  who  was  hidden  by  a  tall  screen,  heard 
all  this  and  was  rather  amused  at  her  self-possession. 
Some  young  women  in  her  position  would,  he 
thought,  have  been  slightly  embarrassed  by  the  ar- 
rival of  their  "chief"  at  a  moment  when  they  hap- 
pened to  be  entertaining  a  strange  young  man. 

Doris  was  not  in  the  least  embarrassed.  She  led 
her  new  visitor  in  and  smiled  cheerfully  at  his  sur- 
prise. 

"Ralph!"  he  exclaimed,  "how  on  earth  did  you 
get  here?" 

His  nephew  explained  and  Doris  continued  her 
preparations  for  tea. 

"One  cup  of  tea,"  she  observed,  "is  not  much  of 
a  return  for  all  the  suppers  you  have  given  me." 

Sir  Ralph  suppressed  a  smile;  he  perceived  that 


332  THE  TIDEWAY 

his  uncle  was  not  so  free  from  embarrassment  as 
their  hostess. 

"So  he  stands  her  suppers!"  he  said  to  himself, 
"these  quiet  parsons  know  a  thing  or  two." 

Mr.  Drumble  longed  to  explain  that  it  was  only 
when  his  sister  was  at  the  Vicarage  that  he  enter- 
tained Miss  Hepworth. 

"Ah!"  he  said  diplomatically,  "when  Mrs.  Eus- 
tace comes  again  we  must  have  more  supper  parties." 

"Meanwhile  it  is  my  turn  to  be  host,"  said  Doris, 
and  invited  the  two  gentlemen  to  sit  down. 

It  was  not  a  very  late  party  when  Mr.  Drumble 
and  Sir  Ralph  said  good  night,  it  was  not  yet  eight 
o'clock.    Then  Doris  went  back  to  her  writing. 

A  night  or  two  afterwards  Sir  Ralph  came  again. 

"My  uncle  has  been  called  out  to  go  to  see  an  old 
woman  who  lives  at  the  other  end  of  the  parish,"  he 
explained,  "and  when  I  got  In  from  a  long  walk  I 
found  a  note  from  him  saying  we  should  not  have 
supper  till  nine  o'clock.  So  I  came  round  to  inquire 
how  that  shipwreck  is  getting  on.  I  really  was  in  a 
shipwreck  once,  and  I  offer  you  the  use  of  my  ex- 
perience." 

He  persuaded  her,  much  against  her  will,  to  read 
what  she  had  written,  and  then  he  told  her,  briefly 
but  with  a  certain  pictorial  force,  exactly  what  his 
own  shipwreck  had  been  like. 

"Can  you  work  it  in?"  he  asked  when  he  had  fin- 
ished. 

"Yes,  I  think  so.    I  will  try  presently." 

"Then  I  shall  come  again  to-morrow  evening  to 
hear  what  you  have  written." 

"I  took  it  for  granted,"  Doris  remarked  pres- 
ently, "that  you  must  be  in  the  Navy.  I  gather  that 
you  are  not." 

"No.  I  was  meant  for  the  Civil  Service,  but  I 
didn't  cotton  to  it.  Then  I  chucked  it,  and  I  was  too 
old  for  the  Navy  so  I  went  into  the   Mercantile 


HER  LADYSHIP  333 

Marine.  I  was  determined  to  be  a  sailor  of  some 
sort.  My  people  were  rather  scandalized — they 
didn't  think  the  Merchant  Service  smart  enough." 

Doris  smiled  to  herself  and  he  noticed  it. 

"What  amuses  you?"  he  inquired. 

"I  was  thinking  we  had  something  in  common; 
my  people  were  scandalized,  too;  they  didn't  think 
a  village  schoolmistress  at  all  smart  either." 

"It  seems  to  suit  you." 

"Yes,  it  does.  I  like  being  my  own  mistress,  and 
eating  bread  I've  earned  myself." 

When  he  went  away,  which  he  did  in  a  few  min- 
utes, Sir  Ralph  thought  over  this. 

He  did  not  unreservedly  agree  to  it.  Women,  in 
his  opinion,  should  eat  what  man  earned  for  them. 
When  he  got  back  to  the  vicarage  he  found  Mrs. 
Eustace  there. 

"Philip  wrote  and  said  you  were  here,"  she  ex- 
plained, "and  asked  me  and  Jim  to  come  and  help 
to  amuse  you.  But  Jim  has  an  examination  for  pro- 
motion on  hand.  So  I  came  myself.  Is  Miss  Hep- 
worth  still  here?  Phil  never  mentions  her  and  I 
don't  like  to  ask;  it's  a  sore  subject,  I  expect." 

Mrs.  Eustace  was  still  a  chatterbox  and  soon  told 
her  nephew  all  about  it. 

"He  does  not  seem  very  lovesick,"  Ralph  de- 
clared, poking  the  fire  unnecessarily. 

"No?  I  daresay  not.  When  she  refused  him,  he 
told  her  it  didn't  matter.  It's  a  pity  he  was  in  such  a 
hurry.  She  would  have  looked  after  his  shirts  and 
seen  that  he  had  his  hair  cut." 

Ralph  did  not  seem  to  think  his  aunt's  idea  a  very 
brilliant  one,  and  that  lady  perceived  the  fact  with 
some  amusement. 

"We'll  have  her  to  supper  again,"  she  observed 
cheerfully.  "You  and  I  can  play  cribbage  and  leave 
the  coast  clear." 

"I  can't  play  cribbage." 


334  THE  TIDEWAY 

"Oh,  I'll  teach  you.  The  great  thing  is  to  give 
them  time,  I  must  beg  him  not  to  propose  again  for 
— well,  say  a  fortnight." 

"I  should  think  once  was  enough." 

*'0h,  I  don't  know.  I'm  all  for  her  marrying; 
she's  really  very  pretty  and  very  well-bred,  and  quite 
as  well  born  as  we  are.  It's  all  nonsense  her  being 
a  schoolmistress." 

"There's  something  in  that!"  agreed  her  nephew. 

"And,"  said  Mrs.  Eustace,  "Phil's  her  only 
chance." 

Ralph  poked  the  fire  again,  and  smiled  up  the 
chimney. 

Mrs.  Eustace  stayed  three  weeks,  and  while  she 
was  packing  on  the  day  before  her  departure,  she 
also  smiled — into  a  hat  box. 

"I  don't  believe,"  she  assured  herself,  "that  Phil 
will  mind  a  bit.    He  has  so  little  spirit." 

Nor  did  he. 

When  she  went  down  to  tea  her  brother  swallowed 
three  cups  without  saying  a  word. 

"Where's  Ralph?"  she  asked  demurely. 

"He  has  gone  back  to  fetch  Miss  Hepworth — he 
was  here  just  now.  He  asked  me  to  tell  you.  It's 
just  as  well  I  did  ask  her  too  soon,  though  you  were 
cross  with  me  at  the  time.  Ralph  will  suit  her  far 
better,  and,  though  I  enjoy  your  visits  extremely,  I 
don't  know  that  I  should  care  to  have  a  lady  always 
on  the  spot.  It  seems  to  upset  the  women  servants, 
and  I  could  not  stand  being  tidied  as  a  regular  thing. 
During  your  visits  I  make  the  best  of  it.  But  only 
to-day,  you  tidied  two  sermons  together,  and  now  I 
can't  tell  which  is  which !" 

"And  you  really  don't  mind?  You're  not  disap- 
pointed?" 

"Not  at  all.  But  Ralph  would  have  been.  He 
tells  me  he  was  so  nervous  till  he  knew  what  she 


HER  LADYSHIP  335 

would  say,  that  he  couldn't  even  read  the  news- 
papers. I  remember  when  /  asked  feeling  nervous, 
too — if  she  had  said  'Yes,'  there  would  have  been 
no  backing  out  of  it," 

When  Aunt  Adeliza  heard  the  news  she  tele- 
graphed to  her  lawyer  and  made  a  new  will  without 
a  day's  delay.  As  Sir  Ralph  Berwick  was  very  well 
off,  and  his  wife  could  not  possibly  need  any  more 
money,  the  old  lady  left  her  Billings  Court  included, 
and  that  will  was  never  altered. 

"Doris,"  she  wrote  to  her  brother,  "is  the  only 
member  of  the  family  who  ever  had  any  decision  of 
character;  she  takes  much  more  after  me  than  after 
you  or  her  poor  mother.  Sir  Ralph  must  bring  her 
here  as  soon  as  the  honeymoon  is  over;  Lady  Ber- 
wick must  be  introduced  to  her  future  tenantry." 


BY  THE  WAY 
I 

It's  no  use,  sir,"  observed  the  railway  guard  (a 
civil  person  with  a  rosebud  in  his  button-hole), 
"I'm  afraid  you'll  not  find  a  place.  All  the  thirds 
are  full  up.  The  train's  moving — you'd  better  step 
in  here,  sir." 

And  he  held  open  the  door  of  a  first-class  car- 
riage, and  assisted  either  the  indecision  or  the  in- 
agility  of  Dom  Maurus  by  a  slight  pat  or  push  in 
the  small  of  the  back,  which  landed  him  almost  on 
the  knees  of  a  young  officer,  who  smiled  pleasantly. 
Dom  Maurus  dropped  into  the  seat  opposite,  and 
begged  his  pardon. 

"The  railway  company,"  observed  the  only  other 
legitimate  occupant  of  the  carriage,  "should  pro- 
vide more  third-class  compartments." 

He  was  a  gentleman  of  what  is  called  a  full  habit, 
with  a  great  deal  of  double  chin,  and  a  neck  that 
overlapped  his  stiff  collar  considerably.  The  young 
officer  glanced  at  him,  but  turned  his  eyes  away 
again  quickly,  as  though  the  briefest  inspection  were 
quite  enough  to  satisfy  any  desire  he  had  had  of 
looking  at  the  gentleman. 

The  stoutish  gentleman  had  a  good  deal  of  lug- 
gage and  had  so  disposed  it  as  to  take  up  a  good  deal 
of  room.  Dom  Maurus  had  only  a  small  bag,  which 
he  contrived  should  take  up  no  room  at  all,  as  he 
almost  sat  on  it. 

"Pardon  me,"  said  the  stoutish  gentleman,  "are 
you  going  to  London?" 

Again  the  young  officer  glanced,  hurriedly,  at  the 
stout  gentleman,  and  in  doing  so  uncrossed  his  legs, 
and  crossed  them  again — as  it  were  impatiently. 
The    glance    and    the    gesture    seemed    to    protest 

336 


BY  THE  WAY  337 

"surely  this  poor  gentleman  may  go  where  he  likes 
without  giving  us  any  account  of  it." 

"No,"  answered  the  young  monk,  "I  am  going 
to  Oldminster." 

"Then  you  will  have  to  change  at  Saxby.  In  the 
slow  train  you  will  doubtless  find  plenty  of  third- 
classes." 

At  this  second  allusion  to  third-class  carriages 
the  young  officer  darted  a  third  glance  at  the  stout 
gentleman  and  coughed  slightly. 

"Did  you  address  me,  sir?"  asked  the  stout  gen- 
tleman, turning  himself  in  his  collar. 

"Anything  but,"  replied  the  young  officer,  with- 
out a  moment's  indecision. 

"Personally,  I  frequently  converse  with  the 
chance  companion  of  a  journey,"  remarked  the  stout 
gentleman  (whose  portmanteaux  had  the  letters 
O.  Y.  stamped  upon  them  in  gilt).  "Thus  I  enlarge 
my  knowledge  of  the  race." 

"To  get  tips?"  suggested  the  young  officer. 

The  only  tips  of  which  the  stout  gentleman  had 
cognizance  were  gratuities,  and  he  looked  vague. 

"Life  itself,"  he  explained,  "is  but  a  journey.  And 
I  snatch  the  chance  of  encounter  of  its  little  counter- 
part to  widen  my  outlook." 

He  widened  his  outlook  at  the  moment  by  open- 
ing his  bulgy  eyes  to  their  utmost  capacity. 

The  young  officer  slightly  groaned  and  buried 
himself  in  Punch. 

"You,  I  take  it,"  said  O.  Y.,  "are  one  of  the  band 
of  our  brave  defenders." 

"I'm  not,"  declared  the  young  officer  desperately, 
"in  the  band.  I  doubt  if  I  should  defend  you  very 
bravely." 

"I  used,"  observed  O.  Y.,  "the  term  'brave  de- 
fenders' generally.  Of  your  personal  courage  you 
are  yourself,  no  doubt,  the  best  judge." 


338  THE  TIDEWAY 

He  spoke  with  a  smile  of  great  extent,  but  super- 
ficial depth. 

"And  you,  sir,"  he  said,  slightly  indicating  the 
intruded  third-class  passenger,  with  a  little  wave 
of  his  fat  hand,  "are,  as  I  apprehend,  a  Roman 
priest." 

It  showed,  I  think,  what  a  good  fellow  the  young 
officer  was  that  he  was  much  more  savage  with  the 
stout  gentleman  for  his  assaults  on  the  third-class 
passenger  than  bored  by  those  levelled  at  himself. 
He  looked  at  O.  Y.  with  a  very  plain  intention  of 
demanding,  "Why  the  mischief  can't  you  let  him 
alone?" 

"I  am  not  a  priest — yet,"  answered  Dom  Maurus, 
"and  I  am  not  a  Roman.  Most  of  the  younger 
Roman  priests  are,  I  fancy,  at  present  with  the 
Italian  armies." 

"I  took  you,"  said  the  stout  gentleman,  "for  a 
Catholic—" 

"I  am  certainly  a  Catholic." 

"And  your  dress  is  clerical !" 

"You  seem,"  remarked  the  young  officer  cheer- 
fully, addressing  O.  Y.,  "to  have  made  a  clerical 
error." 

The  stout  gentleman  slightly  cleared  his  throat, 
but  did  not  look  at  the  young  officer. 

"You  state,"  he  observed  to  his  other  victim, 
"that  you  are  not  a  Roman — " 

"Any  fellow  could  see,"  interpolated  the  young 
officer,  "that  he  was  an  English  gentleman." 

"But,"  continued  O.  Y.,  ignoring  the  interrup- 
tion, "you  admit  you  are  a  Catholic — " 

"It  is  no  admission.  It  is  the  best  thing  there  is 
about  me." 

The  stout  gentleman  closed  both  eyes  as  firmly  as 
he  had  previously  opened  them,  and  slowly  shook 
his  head.    It  was  clear,  his  opinion  that  if  being  a 


BY  THE  WAY  339 

Catholic  was  the  best  thing  about  the  third-class 
passenger  he  must  be  in  a  bad  way. 

He  kept  his  eyes  so  long  closed  that  the  young 
officer  began  to  hope  that  he  was  going  to  sleep, 
though  he  could  not  divine  in  what  had  lain  the 
narcotic  power  of  his  fellow-victim's  very  brief 
speech. 

But  O.  Y.  opened  his  eyes  again  suddenly  and 
remarked — "I  fail  to  understand  why  you  denied 
that  you  were  a  Catholic  priest." 

The  young  officer's  disappointment  made  him 
truculent. 

"You  fail  to  understand  a  lot,  I  daresay,"  he  de- 
clared.   "Why  not  go  on  failing?" 

"I  am  not  habituated  to  failure.  To  understand 
things  is  my  unalterable  custom:  Why  deny  it?" 
In  answering  the  young  officer  the  stout  gentleman 
had  not  looked  at  him :  he  had  looked  fixedly  at  the 
direction  for  stopping  the  train.  But  he  turned 
largely  to  Dom  Maurus  to  address  him. 

"Because  it  happens  to  be  the  case  that  I  am  not 
a  priest.      I  am  only  a  deacon." 

"A  deacon!"  cried  O.  Y.  "And  surely  a  deacon 
is  as  much  a  young  priest  as  a  young  elephant  is  a, 
a,  an  elephant!"  He  spoke  with  the  air  of  a  man 
who  scorned  trifling  and  subterfuge,  and  regarded 
the  trifler  with  some  severity. 

"A  young  deacon  may  become  a  young  priest 
certainly,"  said  Dom  Maurus  smiling,  "but  a  young 
elephant  is  an  elephant  already." 

O.  Y.  shook  his  head  sadly.  He  had  been  pre- 
pared to  find  Dom  Maurus  disingenuous,  but  this 
was  very  bad. 

"I  perceived  at  once,"  he  observed,  "that  you 
were  an  ecclesiastic  of  the  Roman  Obedience.  I 
am  seldom  deceived." 

"And  I,"  almost  wailed  the  young  officer,  "per- 


340  THE  TIDEWAY 

ceived  at  once  that  you  were  a  bore  of  enormous 
calibre  :  and  oh,  how  glad  I  should  have  been  to  have 
been  deceived." 

The  stout  gentleman  grew  a  little  purpler,  but  to 
this  attack  he  made  no  verbal  rejoinder  whatever. 
Perhaps  because,  like  Dr.  Johnson  on  a  certain 
occasion,  he  had  nothing  ready. 

"Your  hair,"  he  remarked  to  Dom  Maurus,  who 
had  long  ago  removed  his  hat,  "is  oddly  cut" 
—  ("Good  Lord!"  cried  the  young  officer)  " — is 
oddly  cut,"  repeated  O.  Y.  imperturbably.  "I  opine 
that  you  are  a  friar." 

"No,"  said  Dom  Maurus.      "I  am  a  monk." 

Again  the  stout  gentleman  had  the  air  of  expos- 
tulating thrice. 

"A  monk,  not  a  friar.     Very  well,  indeed." 

"I  wish  I  was  a  monkey,"  wailed  the  young  offi- 
cer, "a  man-eating  monkey.  I'd  do  my  best,  though 
it  poisoned  me." 

"An  officer  and  a  gentleman!"  remarked  O.  Y., 
lifting  a  fat  hand  and  dropping  it  again  rhetorically: 
smiling  at  the  square  toe  of  his  immense  boot  with 
an  exasperating  sense  of  having  neatly  triumphed. 

The  young  officer  seemed  so  very  ready  for  retort 
that  Dom  Maurus  put  in  a  plea  for  peace. 

"I  should  leave  him  alone  if  I  were  you,"  he  said. 

"Yes,  if  he'll  leave  you  alone." 

"I  don't  mind  it  in  the  least.  I  imagine  he  is  per- 
fectly well-meaning." 

The  young  officer  looked  with  admiration  at  the 
young  monk — it  was  so  abundantly  evident  that  his 
kindly  tolerance  was  gall  and  wormwood  to  the 
stout  gentleman. 

The  young  officer  smiled,  and  leaning  forward 
said  in  a  low  voice — 

"You  are,  I  see,  very  well  able  to  look  after  your- 
self.    I  shall  leave  you  alone  and  watch  the  fun." 


BY  THE  WAY  341 

"I,"  said  O.  Y.,  rising  so  to  speak  in  his  stir- 
rups, "am  used  to  petulance." 

Dom  Maurus  bowed,  and  no  words  could  have 
more  clearly  said,  "You  must  occasion  it  pretty 
frequently." 

"But  petulance,"  added  O.  Y.,  "never  turns  me 
from  my  purpose.  In  life's  course  one  meets  many 
men :  and  their  life  interests  me.     Yours  does." 

Dom  Maurus  bowed  again. 

"Yes,  yours.      Now  tell  me  what  it  is." 

"My  life?" 

"Yes.  The  life  of  a — I  beg  your  pardon,  not  a 
friar — but  a  monk.    What  does  a  monk  do?" 

"Well,  sir;  you  see  monks  are  men"  (O.  Y. 
slightly  raised  his  eyebrows  as  willing  to  let  the 
statement  pass  unchallenged)  "and,  like  other  men, 
they  do  different  things." 

O.Y.  again  assumed  the  air  of  defying  the  whole 
Church  of  Rome,  to  deceive  him  with  shallow  sub- 
terfuge :  let  alone  one  deacon  who  wasn't  man 
enough  to  admit  he  was  a  priest  and  face  the  conse- 
quences. 

"I  had  hoped,"  he  said  patiently,  "to  have  learned 
what  the  life  of  a  monk  is  from  one  who,  who,  who 
undergoes  it." 

"Well,  I  myself  am  a  Benedictine." 

"Oh!  A  Benedictine,"  (he  pronounced  it  like  the 
liqueur)  "and  what  do  you  do?  Make  the  bever- 
age of  that  name?" 

"It  is  not  commonly  used  precisely  as  a  beverage. 
No,  neither  I  nor  any  Benedictines  in  England 
make  the  liqueur.  It  happens  to  be  a  patent  of  a 
foreign  house.  I  will  tell  you,  if  you  care  to  listen, 
what  we  do.  We  have  a  large  school  for  boys,  and 
many  of  the  monks  teach  in  it,  though  not  all.  We 
have  a  house  of  studies  at  Oxford,  for  ourselves 
and  for  boys  who  have  gone  on  from  school — a  hall 


342  THE  TIDEWAY 

in  fact.  At  home  we  have  a  large  farm  where  much 
of  what  we  use  is  grown;  and  that,  of  course,  re- 
quires management;  some  of  the  monks  see  to  that. 
There  is,  in  so  big  a  house,  much  correspondence, 
and  the  Abbot  and  his  assistants  see  to  that.  There 
is  a  large,  that  is,  extended  parish,  and  two  of  the 
monks  attend  to  that.  Some  of  our  monks  are  great 
students,  and  some  are  writers:  apart  from  the  fact 
that  we  have  a  quarterly  Review  published  at  the 
Abbey,  and  all  its  contributors  are  monks.  So  hur- 
ried an  epitome  must  be  dry,  but  I  hope  you  can 
perceive  even  from  it  that  one  way  or  another  we 
have  a  good  deal  to  do." 

O.  Y.  slightly  bowed  and  less  slightly  shook  his 
head.  He  intended  to  convey  the  impression  that 
he  would  not  commit  himself;  that  which  as  stated 
by  the  young  monk  sounded  a  good  deal  might  in 
reality  be  very  little  indeed. 

"You  appear,"  he  observed  judicially,  "to  create 
activity  for  one  another.  However,  I  am  glad  to 
hear  that  there  are  activities  (of  a  sort) " 

"So  far,  then,"  said  Dom  Maurus,  with  an  air  of 
relieved  suspense,  "we  are  fortunate  in  escaping 
your  censure." 

"So  far,  yes.  Observe,  I  do  not  enter  in  the  dis- 
cussion as  to  how  far  those  activities  are  directed  to 
an  end  intrinsically  good.  To  admit  the  Intrinsic 
goodness  of  the  end  would  be  tantamount  to  admis- 
sion that  education  in  certain  principles  was  itself 
laudable.      Now  those  principles " 

''Oh,  Lord!  cried  the  young  officer,  "why  can't 
there  be  a  moderate  railway  accident?  I'd  sustain 
a  shock,  or  lose  a  toe  or  two,  and  never  claim  a 
penny  from  the  company,  if  only  it  would  give  you 
aphasia." 

So  profane  a  wish  really  had  momentarily  the 
effect  desired.    The  stout  gentleman  was  for  many 


BY  THE  WAY  343 

a  minute  dum founded;  and  he  could  (during  that 
lamentably  brief  period)  only  shake  his  head  at  the 
rack  for  light  articles,  only  on  which  a  ponderous 
bag  of  his  own  reposed. 

"By  principles,"  he  said  then,  "I  have  through 
life  been  guided." 

*'I  wish  to  goodness  they  had  guided  you  into 
some  other  carriage,"  cried  the  young  officer,  still 
with  great  heat. 

"The  carriage  has  a  door "  O.  Y.  was  be- 
ginning. 

"It  has  also  a  window,"  the  young  officer  inter- 
rupted darkly. 

O.  Y.  smiled  disdainfully.  There  were  two  win- 
dows, but  if  the  young  officer  had  paused  to  consider 
he  must  have  perceived  that  the  stout  gentleman's 
back  would  secure  him  from  any  chance  of  exit  by 
either  of  them.  The  stout  gentleman  did  consider 
It,  and  It  restored  his  complacence.  "You,"  he  said 
to  Dom  Maurus,  "are,  as  you  state,  a  Benedic- 
tine  " 

"Are  you  going  to  prove  that  he's  a  Kummel  or  a 
Curacoa?"  moaned  the  young  officer. 

"And  the  Benedictines  (I  have  heard  the  claim 
advanced  before)  make  some  show  of  educational 
activity.  But  there  are  monks  who  do  not  even  set 
up  such  a  claim." 

Dom  Maurus  bowed  patiently. 

"Monks  who  do  not  even  pretend  to  do  anything 
whatever." 

"Is  that  so?" 

"That  is  so.  Possibly  as  a  Benedictine  you  may 
excuse  yourself  from  defense  of  the  Carthusians — " 

"Look  here,"  exclaimed  the  young  officer,  "mind 
what  you're  saying,  /  am  an  Old  Carthusian." 

For  the  first  time  the  stout  gentleman  really  did 


344  THE  TIDEWAY 

jump,  and  for  the  first  time  Dom  Maurus  laughed.. 
The  young  officer  looked  so  particularly  young,  and 
his  whole  appearance  was  so  far  from  being  mo- 
nastic, that  O.  Y.  had  some  excuse  for  being  taken 
aback. 

"This  gentleman,"  explained  Dom  Maurus,  "is 
not  claiming  to  be  an  old  monk;  he  was  probably 
educated  at  the  Charterhouse." 

"He  stated  that  he  was  an  Old  Carthusian — I  fail 
to  comprehend." 

"Comprehension  ain't  your  strong  point,"  ob- 
served the  young  officer  with  unfettered  candor. 
"I'd  knock  it  off  if  I  were  you.  Try  contrasted  ig- 
norance; you're  cut  out  for  it.  You'd  get  the  Gold 
Medal  for  it  any  year." 

"Come,"  pleaded  Dom  Maurus,  "he  does  his  best. 
No,  sir,"  (to  the  stout  gentleman),  "I  should  not 
presume  to  excuse  the  Carthusians.  Theirs  is  a  rare 
and  high  vocation." 

"Vocation  presumes  calling.   Who  calls  them?" 

"He  who  calls  you  to  serve  Him,  no  doubt  in  some 
different  fashion." 

"I,  sir,  am  a  Worker."' 

("I  wish,"  murmured  the  young  officer,  "you  were 
at  home;  in  your  workhouse.") 

"A  worker,  sir.  That  is  my  calling.  To  work  for 
good.  To  increase  the  sum  of  good  in  the  world." 

"The  Carthusians,  unseen  and  unheard,  are  em- 
ployed, like  you,  in  increasing  the  sum  of  good  in  the 
world." 

"By  doing  nothing!  By  leading  idle  lives — like 
drones." 

"I  do  not  know  that  we  need  at  present  occupy 
ourselves  with  the  usefulness  of  drones,  li  they  were 
useless  there  would  be  something  amiss  with  crea- 
tion; for  they  would  not  exist  had  they  not  been 
created  by  the  same  Wisdom  that  created  the  queen 


BY  THE  WAY  345 

bees  and  the  workers.  It  is  enough  to  remind  our- 
selves that  the  drone  is  as  essential  to  the  bee  race 
as  the  queen,  and  more  so  than  an  equal  number  of 
worker-bees.  But  at  present  we  are  talking  not  of 
bees,  but  of  Carthusians.  They,  and  many  like  them, 
such  as  Carmelite  nuns,  and  the  other  pure  contem- 
platives,  do  their  noble  share  in  the  Church's  work 
for  God  by  contributing  to  its  quality." 

The  young  monk,  as  he  ended,  rather  lowered  than 
raised  his  voice,  but  his  final  words  were  spoken  with 
a  clear  emphasis. 

"You  are  probably  aware,"  he  went  on  more 
quickly,  "that  many  persons  do,  in  fact,  join  our 
Church?" 

The  stout  gentleman  lifted  a  sad  hand,  as  who 
would  say,  "Alas  !     Too  true." 

"And  what  brings  them  to  it?" 

"Delusion!" 

"No  doubt  you  think  so.  But  you  must  see  that 
they^  at  least,  would  not  so  answer.  They  join  the 
Church  because  of  a  certain  quality  that  they  come  to 
recognize  in  her.  Because  in  her  they  recognize  some- 
thing that  they  do  not  find  elsewhere;  a  quality  of 
excellence  that  draws  them;  that  which  we  call  the 
Note  of  Sanctity.  If  the  Saints  had  not  been  Cath- 
olics you  may  be  sure  that  our  preachers  would 
preach  in  vain;  no  subtle  exhibition  of  doctrines 
would  suffice  of  itself  to  allure  those  who  stand  out- 
side, were  it  not  that  they  outside  who  have  come 
to  us  have  first  of  all  arrived  at  the  instinctive  con- 
viction that  in  the  Church  is  a  quality  unique ;  and  to 
that  quality  the  hidden  contemplative  has  been  con- 
tributing through  the  slow  and  silent  ages.  Here,  sir, 
is  Saxby,  I  believe ;  and  here  I  change  into  the  local 
train,  in  which  I  shall  find,  as  you  observed,  plenty 
of  third-class  carriages.   You  two  gentlemen  are  per- 


346  THE  TIDEWAY 

kaps  for  London,  and  will  continue  your  journey  to- 
gether." 

"Not  if  this  one  of  them  knows  it,"  said  the  young 
officer,  with  intense  conviction,  hurriedly  getting  his 
rugs  and  traps  together. 


"POOR  ELEANOR!" 
I 

THE  question  is — will  any  reader  put  up  with  a 
heroine  of  thirty  ?  If  it  be  assumed  that  no  un- 
married woman  of  that  age  can  be  worth  writing 
about,  then  the  case  of  Eleanor  Winton  is  hopeless. 
For  when  she  met  Sir  Oliver  Morland  for  the  first 
time  she  had  already  kept  (without  much  fun  over 
it)  her  thirtieth  birthday. 

As  it  happened  he  caught  the  first  sight  of  her  face 
in  a  looking-glass:  and  the  looking-glass  was  hang- 
ing on  the  wall  of  a  large  room  in  a  great  London 
hotel :  and  in  the  room  a  meeting  was  being  held — 
organized  by  a  society  for  fostering  friendly  rela- 
tions between  this  country  and  Germany. 

Sir  Oliver  Morland  had  come  there  out  of  a  cer- 
tain curiosity  as  to  what  the  speakers  would  have  to 
say,  and  what  means  they  would  suggest  for  insuring 
the  amity  they  both  desired  and  believed  in.  At  the 
moment  when  he  became  aware  of  the  lady's  re- 
flected face  in  the  mirror  he  had  just  heard  a  very 
high  ecclesiastical  dignitary  declare  that  war  between 
England  and  Germany  was  "unthinkable";  but,  in- 
teresting as  that  decisive  pronouncement  was,  he 
found  himself  at  once  more  interested  by  the  face 
he  saw  in  the  looking-glass. 

Miss  Winton  was  making  some  remarks  in  a  low 
voice  to  another  lady  seated  on  her  left,  and  her  head 
was  turned  away  from  Sir  Oliver  and  towards  the 
mirror;  so  that  though  he  could  only  actually  see  the 
back  of  her  head  he  could  see  her  face  in  the  mirror 
very  well.  It  attracted  him  at  once,  not  merely  by  its 
beauty,  though  he  thought  it  beautiful,  but  because 
it  seemed  to  him  quite  unusually  interesting.  Miss 
Winton   was   rather   tall,    and   also   rather   slight, 

347 


348  THE  TIDEWAY 

though  not  thin ;  her  very  dark  eyes  were  not  black, 
but  of  a  sort  of  deep  shadowy  gray,  and  while  her 
features  were  good  it  was  the  whole  expression  of  the 
face  that  gave  a  peculiar  distinction  to  it.  As  the 
lady  beside  her  turned  to  answer  what  she  had  said, 
the  young  man  perceived  that  it  was  the  Duchess 
of  Solway,  whom  he  knew  very  well;  at  whose  house 
in  Cumberland  he  was  indeed  going  to  stay  within 
the  next  few  days  for  the  coming  of  age  of  Lord 
Rockcliff,  her  only  son. 

Catching  his  eye  the  Duchess  smiled,  and  nodded, 
and  put  on  a  queer  little  expression  as  much  as  to 
say,  "You  here,  too:  and  what  do  you  think  of  it 
all?" 

Between  them,  besides  Miss  Winton,  there  were 
two  other  ladies,  unknown  to  either,  who  had  fol- 
lowed the  speeches  with  severe  attention,  and  had 
applauded  decisively  as  though  that  settled  it.  So 
at  present  the  Duchess  and  Sir  Oliver  Morland  could 
do  no  more  than  smile  at  each  other.  But  after  a  few 
minutes  he  received  a  little  note  from  her,  scribbled 
on  the  back  of  a  programme,  and  forwarded  by 
favor  of  Miss  Winton  and  the  two  decisive  ladies. 

"Come  to  tea,"  it  said,  "and  let's  talk  over  this." 

Whether  he  would  have  gone  to  tea  at  Solway 
House  when  the  meeting  ended  (with  cheers  for 
King  George  and  the  Emperor  William:  with  God 
save  the  King,  and  without  Deutschland  iiber  A  lies), 
if  he  had  not  seen  Miss  Winton's  face  in  the  looking- 
glass,  I  cannot  say;  but  it  is  certain  he  did  go.  And 
it  is  certain  that  he  found  that  lady  still  with  the 
Duchess. 

"Well,"  said  he,  when  she  had  introduced  him  to 
Miss  Winton,  "I'm  sure  it  was  all  very  nice.  Only 
I  wish  that  Herr  Pastor,  who  spoke  so  tenderly  of 
his  nation's  longing  for  our  love,  hadn't  pronounced 
it  'loaves'.  " 


"POOR  ELEANOR/"  349 

"Now,  Aunt  Elspeth,"  protested  Miss  Winton, 
"if  you're  going  to  scoff." 

"I'm  not.  I  was  merely  expressing  a  wish.  I 
thought  it  a  good  meeting.  General  Pan  looked 
like  a  lion  in  a  den  of  lambs.  I  wonder  what  he 
thought  of  it  all.  Come,  Oliver,  what  are  we  to 
say?  Is  peace  now  a  settled  thing  forever,  and  are 
we  to  turn  the  Navy  Into  a  fleet  of  pleasure  cruisers 
— perhaps  Cook  would  buy  them?" 

"I'm  sorry  I  took  you  to  the  meeting,"  said  Miss 
Winton. 

"Well,  I  didn't  particularly  want  to  go.  However, 
I'm  glad  I  did.  The  speeches  were  good.  But,  oh 
dear!" 

"What  does  *Oh  dear!'  mean.  Duchess?"  Mor- 
land  asked  laughing. 

"It  means  that  I  wonder  how  much  the  Emperor 
William  cares  for  it  all." 

"I  expect  he  thoroughly  approves,"  said  Sir 
Oliver. 

"So  do  I,"  agreed  his  hostess.  "That's  just  it. 
He  hasn't  the  slightest  desire  that  we  should  dream 
of  war — " 

"Nor  do  we,"  said  Miss  Winton. 

"I'm  sure  we  don't,"  declared  Morland. 

"No,"  said  their  hostess,  "we  dream  of  Peace,  and 
one  fine  morning  he'll  wake  us  up." 

Then  followed  an  argument,  which  need  not  be 
repeated  here.  What  concerns  us  is  that  they  were 
all  very  friendly  and  intimate  together;  so  that 
when,  six  days  later,  Morland  and  Miss  Winton 
found  themselves  together  again  at  Solway  Court 
they  did  not  meet  as  strangers. 

He  did  not  see  her  till  he  came  down  from  his 
room  for  dinner,  and  when  he  walked  into  the  long 
gallery,  where  it  was  the  custom  of  the  house  for  the 


3 so  THE  TIDEWAY 

party  to  assemble  before  dinner,  she  was  the  only 
other  person  in  it. 

He  was  not  much  given  to  consider  the  details  of 
a  lady's  dress;  but  it  struck  him  at  once  that  hers 
was  exactly  suited  to  her :  and  he  was  sure  that, 
though  her  beauty  by  no  means  depended  on  mere 
adornment,  evening  dress  showed  it  off  much  better 
than  the  present  fashion  of  ladies'  outdoor  costume 
which  he  happened  not  to  admire. 

He  made  some  slight  remark  on  the  beauty  of  the 
great  gallery  and  its  rather  famous  tapestry:  add- 
ing, "I  have  only  been  here  once  before.  You,  I 
suppose,  know  the  place  well." 

"I  used  to."  Then,  after  a  moment's  pause: 
"Till  yesterday  I  had  not  been  here  for  years." 

Just  then  a  Miss  Chipchase  came  in,  and  soon 
afterwards  Sir  Oliver  had  to  take  her  to  dinner.  She 
knew  all  about  everybody  and  was  accustomed  to 
talk  about  people.  She  read  books  and  looked 
at  pictures  (even  landscapes  when  she  could  not  help 
it) ,  but  people  were  her  subject:  that  is  to  say  people 
of  her  own  class. 

"You,"  she  said  at  a  very  early  stage  of  dinner, 
"are  a  friend  of  Rockcliff's,  aren't  you?  You  know, 
he  is  my  godson." 

"I  know  him  rather  well  now,  but  I  have  not 
known  him  long.  You  see  I'm  ten  years  older  and 
he  has  only  just  stopped  being  a  boy." 

"He  never  will  stop.  Did  you  know  the  elder 
brother,  Lord  Malbray?     He  would  be  just  your 

"No,  I  never  met  him.  He  was  killed  in  South 
Africa,  wasn't  he?" 

"Yes;  just  at  the  end  of  the  war.  All  the  sisters 
came  between  him  and  Rupert,  as  we  called  him 
then.  Of  course,  Rockcliff  is  only  a  Baron's  title,  and 
it's  a  little  odd  for  a  Duke's  eldest  son  to  be  only  a 


''POOR  ELEANORr  351 

baron,  but,  as  you  know,  when  anything  happens  to 
an  eldest  son  the  next  one,  who  steps  into  his  shoes, 
never  takes  the  same  courtesy  title." 

Morland  did  know,  but  was  not  particularly  inter- 
ested. What  Miss  Chipchase  said  next  interested 
him  a  good  deal  more.  "You  were  talking  to 
Eleanor  Winton  before  dinner,"  she  went  on.  "Of 
course,  you  know  she  was  engaged  to  Malbray." 

"No,  I  didn't.  I  only  saw  her  for  the  first  time 
last  week." 

After  a  moment's  pause  he  added: 

"She  must  have  been  very  young — if  Lord  Mal- 
bray was  killed  thirteen  years  ago." 

"She  was  barely  seventeen  when  he  became  en- 
gaged and  he  was  killed  three  months  afterward." 

"She  certainly  does  not  look  thirty  now,"  said  Sir 
Oliver. 

"How  old  should  you  have  thought  her?" 

"I  never  gave  it  a  thought  till  now.  ...  I 
should  say  not  more  than  five  and  twenty." 

"The  fact  is,"  declared  Miss  Chipchase,  "she  has 
looked  exactly  the  same  for  the  last  seven  or  eight 
years,  and  will  go  on  looking  the  same  perhaps  for 
another  seven.  I  intend  to  look  the  same  for  the 
next  ten  or  twenty." 

"You  couldn't  do  better,"  said  the  young  man 
laughing. 

"At  all  events,"  asserted  the  lady,  laughing,  too, 
"it's  a  personal  matter;  when  a  woman  is  five  and 
^iorty  her  looks  only  concern  herself,  and  the  public 
has  no  right  to  ask  questions." 

"I  didn't  ask  any.    You  told  me." 

"Certainly;  but  you  ought  to  have  said  I  only 
looked  thirty-five.  Why  should  Eleanor  get  all  the 
compliments?  Especially  as  she  can't  hear  them, 
and  wouldn't  care  sixpence  for  them  if  she  did." 

Morland  was  rather  glad  she  had  got  back  to 


352  THE  TIDEWAY 

Miss  Winton;  and,  to  do  her  justice,  Miss  Chip- 
chase  was  much  fonder  of  talking  about  other  peo- 
ple than  of  herself. 

"Since  Malbray  died,"  she  went  on,  "Eleanor  has 
put  all  that  aside." 

"All  what?" 

"Of  course  you  know  what  I  mean.  Being  so  very 
young,  and  having  only  been  engaged  so  short  a 
time,  most  people  thought  she  would  get  over  it  in 
a  year  or  two,  and  would  probably  marry  someone 
else — she  was  a  lovely  girl  then." 

"So  she  is  now." 

"Oh,  I  shouldn't  call  her  a  girl.  Not  exactly  a 
girl.  I'm  sure  she  never  counts  herself  as  one.  And 
everybody  was  wrong.  I  doubt  if  any  man  has  ever 
proposed  to  her  during  all  these  years — I  don't  be- 
lieve anyone  ever  got  the  chance." 

"You  mean  she  didn't  get  over  it." 

"I  don't  mean  that  she  has  been  thinking  of  poor 
Malbray  day  and  night  for  thirteen  years.  Nobody 
can  go  on  like  that.  But  I'm  sure  she  gave  up,  for 
good  and  all,  any  idea  of  marrying.  I  like  Rockcliff 
very  much,  but  Malbray  would  have  made  a  better 
duke  and  Eleanor  would  have  made  a  typical  duch- 


ess. 


"Then,"  said  Morland,  glancing  at  the  head  of 
the  table,  "her  aunt  is  not  a  typical  duchess." 

"No,  of  course  not,"  Miss  Chipchase  agreed,  also 
glancing  at  their  short,  and  rather  plain  hostess,  "she 
is  only  a  duchess  in  real  life.  Eleanor  would  have 
looked  like  a  duchess  by  Gainsborough  or  Sir  Joshua. 
What  a  pity  Malbray  didn't  marry  her  before  going 


out." 


"That,"  observed  the  young  man  without  enthu- 
siasm, "would  not  have  made  her  a  duchess." 

"No.  But  it  would  have  made  her  a  countess. 
And  I'd  rather  be  a  countess  than  Miss — Chip- 
chase." 


"POOR  ELEANOR!"  353 

"I  don't  believe  you  would  a  bit.  I'm  convinced 
you  love  being  Miss  Chipchase." 

"Well,"  the  lady  admitted,  comfortably,  "it  would 
depend  a  little  on  the  Earl.  I  shouldn't  like  one 
who  spent  all  my  money,  and  went  off  to  Monte 
Carlo  or  Somaliland  to  shoot  tigers  and  left  me  at 
home  to  look  after  the  poor  people." 

"There  are  no  tigers  in  Somaliland — or  Monte 
Carlo  either." 

But  while  he  chaffed  Miss  Chipchase  the  young 
man  was  thinking  of  Miss  Winton. 

What  the  elderly,  wealthy  lady  had  told  him  was 
quite  true ;  she  was  always  right  in  her  facts.  Eleanor 
Winton  had  engaged  herself  at  seventeen  to  her 
cousin,  and  from  the  day  of  his  death  had  put  aside 
all  thought  of  marriage. 

"What  I  meant,"  Miss  Chipchase  observed  pres- 
ently, "was  not  quite  what  I  said.  I  don't  know  that 
I  think  so  very  much  of  being  a  countess " 

"Of  course  not,  or  you'd  be  one." 

"That's  better.  Now  you're  getting  civil.  But  it's 
not  civil  to  interrupt.  I  do  mean  this — when  a  ter- 
rible thing  happens,  like  that  that  happened  to 
Eleanor  Winton,  I  think  it's  better  for  her  to  be 
really  the  poor  fellow's  widow  than  to  be  as  she 
was.  The  widow  puts  on  widow's  clothes,  and  knows 
how  to  behave.  In  the  other  case  it's  not  so  plain, 
she  feels  like  a  widow,  but  she  isn't  one.  She  has  to 
wonder  what  she  must  do — how  far  in  widowness 
she  may  go,  just  when  she  wants  to  cry  her  eyes  out 
and  think  of  nothing.  She  feels  the  poor  dead  man 
belonged  to  her  more  than  to  anyone  else  in  the 
world,  and  yet  she  can't  quite  show  that.  She  has  to 
measure  and  weigh  her  actions,  and  what  his  own 
people — father,  mother,  sisters — will  feel  and  think. 
Sir  Oliver,  if  you  think  of  marrying  me,  and  choose 
to  go  off  to  Timbuctoo,  or  somewhere,  pray  let  us 
get  married  before  you  go." 


354  THE  TIDEWAY 

"But,"  objected  he,  laughing  very  cheerfully,  "you 
said  you  would  not  put  up  with  such  conduct  in  your 
Earl,  how  could  I  propose  it?" 

He  laughed  cheerfully,  but  he  was  not  thinking 
of  Miss  Chipchase  and  her  jokes.  He  was  thinking 
of  Miss  Winton,  and  wishing  that  his  neighbor 
would  not  trail  off  into  these  elderly  pleasantries. 
But  Miss  Chipchase  was  rather  enjoying  her  sem- 
blance of  a  bold  flirtation. 

"No,"  she  declared,  "that  Earl  would  only  have 
married  me  for  my  money:  you  wouldn't  dream  of 
doing  such  a  thing." 

"No,  I  wasn't  dreaming  of  it — till  you  put  it  in  my 
head.     Now,  of  course.   ..." 

"Well,  well,"  crackled  Miss  Chipchase,  delighted 
(partly  with  a  Fol-au-vent,  that  was  really  first-rate) , 
"don't  propose  here.  There's  a  place  under  the 
stairs — in  my  young  days  people  didn't  sit  under  the 
stairs  between  dances:  but  aiitres  temps  atitres 
moeurs  and  we  must  live  up  to — the  servants'  hall. 
Shall  we  say  under  the  stairs  at  half-past  ten?" 

Though  no  other  guests  have  been  mentioned  be- 
sides Miss  Winton,  Miss  Chipchase  and  Sir  Oliver 
Morland,  the  party  at  Solway  Court  was  a  large 
one.  The  Duke's  three  daughters  and  the  husbands 
of  those  ladies  were  there,  and  more  than  a  dozen 
other  relations  and  friends.  Miss  Chipchase  could 
not  talk  throughout  dinner  to  Sir  Oliver,  nor  could 
he  talk  only  to  her.  But  his  conversation  with  the 
lady  on  his  left  has  nothing  to  do  with  this  story. 
What  Miss  Chipchase  told  him  has  been  quoted  for 
the  sake  of  the  information  it  gave  him  about  Miss 
Winton. 

II 

"You  and  old  Patty  Chipchase  were  as  thick  as 
thieves  at  dinner,"  the  Duchess  declared  about  an 


'TOOK  ELEANOR/"  355 

hour  after  dinner  was  over.  She  had  Sir  Oliver  in  a 
corner  of  the  Saloon  and  was  prepared  for  a  little 
tete-a-tete. 

"Certainly  we  were.  Our  intimacy  made  rapid 
strides.  She  has  ordered  me  to  meet  her  under  the 
stairs  at  half-past  ten  to  make  a  formal  offer  of  my 
hand  and  heart." 

"That  won't  do  at  all,"  said  Her  Grace.  "She's 
Rockcliff's  godmother  and  must  leave  all  her  money 
to  him." 

"Yes,  she  mentioned  that — not  that  she  had  to 
leave  him  her  money,  but  that  he  was  her  godson." 

"She's  a  useful  person  to  sit  next  the  first  night 
you're  in  a  house,  for  she  tells  you  who  everybody 
is  and  what  they've  done.  That's  why  I  sent  you  to 
dinner  with  her." 

"She  was  talking  chiefly  about  Miss  Winton." 

"Oh,  Eleanor!"  And  the  Duchess  shot  one  swift 
glance  at  the  young  man.  "There's  not  much  to  tell 
about  her.  Everything  that  was  going  to  happen 
to  her  happened  many,  many  years  ago." 

"Yes,"  said  he,  quietly,  "Miss  Chipchase  told  me. 
Then  he  added :  "It  seems  to  me  quite  odd  to  hear 
of  'many,  many  years  ago,'  in  connection  with  her; 
she  looks  so  young." 

He  spoke  gravely,  in  a  low  voice,  remembering 
how  sad  the  subject  must  be  to  the  Duchess  herself. 
For  a  minute  or  so  she  was  silent,  then  she  said : 

"I  wondered  if  you  knew;  I'm  glad  old  Patty  told 
you.  Eleanor  was  very  nearly  being  my  daughter 
and  her  mother  (dead  even  then,  when  my  poor  boy 
was  engaged  to  her)  was  my  favorite  sister.  Of 
course  we  hoped  that  Eleanor  would — she  was  such 
a  child  in  years,  though  not  in  anything  else,  when  it 
happened — that  she  Avould  do  as  other  girls  do, 
and  marry  some  good  man  who  would  make  her 
happy;  not  too  soon,  but  after  a  year  or  two." 


356  THE  TIDEJVAY 

"Miss  Chipchase  seemed  to  think  she  had  never 
thought  of  it,"  he  observed,  not  quite  knowing  what 
to  say. 

"I  don't  believe  she  ever  has.  Oliver,  I  think 
that's  a  mistake.  I  was  his  mother :  but  I  don't  think 
one  grave  should  bury  two  young  lives." 

Her  words  were  very  gently  and  tenderly  spoken, 
and  the  young  man  loved  her  for  them. 

"No  man,"  she  went  on,  "even  the  kindest — and, 
Oliver,  I  know  you  are  kind :  no  man,  I  think,  can  tell 
what  it  is  to  a  woman  to  lose  her  son.  But  I  had  my 
husband  left,  and  my  other  boy,  and  our  three  girls. 
She  had  no  one.  Her  mother  was  gone,  her  father 
was  gone,  and  she  never  had  brother  or  sister.  I 
would  have  welcomed  her  here  if  she  would  have 
made  it  her  home — but  she  would  not;  partly,  I  be- 
lieve, because  she  dreaded  lest  her  presence  should  be 
a  standing  reminder  of  my  own  boy.  And  she  went 
on  living  with  her  other  aunt,  Colonel  Winton's  sis- 
ter, rather  a  grim  old  woman;  and  for  years  she 
never  even  came  here  on  a  visit." 

Again  she  paused,  and  then  added: 

"You  say  it  sounds  odd  to  you  to  hear  us  talking 
of  'many,  many  years  ago'  in  connection  with  her, 
because  she  looks  so  young  still.  I  can  understand 
that.  But  the  truth  is,  I  think,  that  her  clock  stopped 
long  ago.  She  became  a  woman  in  one  day:  and 
Time  has  let  her  alone  all  these  years:  perhaps  he 
will  let  her  alone  till  some  other  day  when  she  will 
become  an  old  woman." 

"I  cannot  bear  to  think  of  that,"  Morland  an- 
swered, simply. 

He  was  not  looking  at  the  Duchess,  but  at  the 
picture  her  words  called  up.  She,  however,  was  look- 
ing at  him. 

"He  is  good-looking,"  she  told  herself,  "and  looks 
good.     Honest,  manly,  quiet,  and  true-hearted.     I 


"POOR  ELEANOR/"  357 

like  him.  So  does  Rupert,  and  I  never  knew  him  like 
a  man  that  was  not  worth  it.  Rupert  isn't  clever 
like  his  father,  or  like  dear  Maurice;  but  he  has 
wonderful  plain  instincts  about  people  that  never 
deceive  him.  If  he"  (she  wasn't  thinking  of  Rock- 
cliff  now)  "if  he  likes  her,  why  shouldn't  she  like 
him  ?  I'd  have  trusted  one  of  my  own  girls  to  him, 
and  I'd  trust  her." 

Though  the  Duchess  of  Solway  had  married  three 
daughters  to  men  of  high  name,  rank  and  fortune, 
she  was  not  counted  a  matchmaker.  But  she  was 
a  little  romantic  (in  spite  of  her  plump  figure  and 
rather  red  cheeks)  and  she  was  uncommonly  kind- 
hearted.  She  liked  her  friends  to  be  happy,  and  she 
had  almost  a  guilty  feeling  that  Eleanor  Winton's 
chances  of  happiness  should  not  be  simply  laid  aside 
because  of  the  great  sorrow  that  had  fallen  on  the 
girl  through  her  own  son's  untimely  death. 

A  very  beautiful  voice  was  filling  the  huge  saloon 
with  its  singularly  clear  true  tones : 

"  'Last  necht,'  "  sang  the  voice,  "  'the  Queen  had 
Four  Maries. 

This  necht  she'll  hae  but  three. 

There's  Mary  Seaton,  and  Mary  Beaton,  and 
Mary  Carmichael  and  me.      .      .      .  '  " 

"Listen,"  said  the  Duchess  hurriedly,  "I  can't  talk 
if  she  sings  that.     It  makes  me  want  to  cry." 

Morland  did  not  want  to  talk.  He  wanted  to  listen 
to  Eleanor  Winton,  He  was  not  altogether  Scotch 
like  the  Duchess,  but  he  was  half  Scotch,  like  Miss 
Winton,  his  mother,  like  hers,  having  been  of  a 
Highland  family;  and  the  exquisitely  tender  pathetic 
song  would  have  appealed  to  him  even  if  it  had  been 
sung  by  another  voice. 

It  was  the  Duchess  who^spoke,  leaning  nearer  to 
him  and  whispering. 

"Ah!    I  remember!    Your  mother  was  a  Hamil- 


358  THE  TIDEWAY 

ton,  and  of  Mary  Hamilton's  line.  Isn't  it  marvel- 
ous how  that  girl's  cruel  death,  who  died  such  cen- 
turies ago,  can  hurt  us  like  this?  My  Jacobitism 
begins  with  Mary  Stuart,     .     .     .     Hush!" 

Indeed  he  had  not  uttered  a  sound;  he  was  eagerly 
driniiing  in  the  beautiful  sad  sounds  of  what  he 
thought  was  the  loveliest  voice  he  had  ever  heard. 
Only  once  before  had  he  heard  the  song,  sung  by  a 
man,  and  it  seemed  to  him  much  more  fit  and  touch- 
ing from  a  girl's  mouth. 

He  could  see  the  singer  now,  for  he  had  risen 
from  his  seat  as  if  out  of  respect;  and  he  thought 
that  he  was  only  now  beginning  to  grasp  fully  her 
grave  and  singular  beauty.  It  did  not  seem  to  him 
at  all  strange  that  no  one  for  so  many  years  had 
ever  thrust  in  upon  her  with  any  new  tale  of  love. 
What  struck  him  as  strange  was  that  in  his  heart 
he  should  have  ventured  already  to  have  such  am- 
bitions. 

Perhaps  his  shrewd  neighbor  guessed  something 
of  his  thoughts.  When  the  song  was  finished,  she 
stood  up  and  said  to  him: 

"Poor  Mary  Hamilton.  .  .  .  Well,  our 
tears  can  do  nothing  for  her  now.  She  doesn't  need 
them;  hers  have  been  dried  in  heaven  hundreds  of 
years  before  we  were  born.  But  that's  our  way, 
isn't  it?  We  cry  our  eyes  out  about  sorrows  that 
have  been  turned  into  joys  ages  ago,  and  the  people 
that  are  sad  still  we  leave  to  themselves."  • 

Upon  my  word.  Duchess  of  Solway,  I  thing  you 
were  a  bit  of  a  matchmaker,  after  all.  But  Sir  Oliver 
Morland  only  thought  her  a  remarkably  sensible 
woman.  And  Miss  Winton  knew  nothing  at  all 
about  it. 

Ill 

Sir  Oliver  Morland  met  Miss  Chipchase  for  the 
first  time  at  Solway  Court  on  the  evening  of  the  last 


"POOR  ELEANOR/"  359 

day  of  June  in  19 14.  He  met  her  again  on  the 
morning  of  the  loth  of  August  following  on  the 
broad  pavement  of  Whitehall,  within  a  few  yards 
of  the  War  Office.  She  greeted  him  with  rather 
more  than  the  familiarity  of  an  old  acquaintance. 

"Ho,  ho !  Sir  Oliver,"  said  she.  "A  little  bird  has 
been  telling  me  news  of  you." 

"It's  a  way  little  birds  have,"  he  remarked  cheer- 
fully.   "Was  your  little  bird  the  Morning  Post?" 

"The  Morning  Post?  No.  Has  your  engagement 
been  in  the  Morning  Post 9" 

"My  engagement!" 

"Oh,  come !  Sir  Oliver,  I  admit  I  tried  In  vain  to 
pump  old  Selina  Winton — you  might  as  well  pump 
the  Desert  of  Sahara.  How's  her  niece?  How's  the 
other  Miss  Winton?" 

"There's  only  one  Miss  Winton.  The  late  Miss 
Eleanor  Winton — poor  thing,  didn't  you  know  they 
had  put  an  end  to  her?" 

"Lord!  Sir  Oliver.  Put  an  end  to  her?  You 
make  my  blood  run  cold.    Who  did  it?" 

"It  was  done,"  said  Morland,  lowering  his  voice, 
"by  a  clergyman." 

"Goodness!     Where  ?"^ 

"In  his  church;  here,  in  London,  yesterday.  I 
saw  her  myself  just  before — and  just  after,  too." 

"Sir  Oliver,  how  fearful !  Didn't  you  try  to  pre- 
serve her?" 

"No.  I  knew  what  he  was  going  to  do — I  sug- 
gested it.  I  chose  the  hour  and  the  place.  We  were 
accomplices." 

"Lord !  And  what  did  she  look  like — before  and 
after?" 

"Well,  she  looked,  before  the  clergyman  had  done 
his  work,  just  like  herself,  like  Miss  Eleanor  Win- 
ton.    Afterwards  she  looked  like — Lady  Morland." 

"Come,"  cried  Miss  Chipchase  laughing,  "I've 
known  your  mother  pretty  well  by  sight  for  twenty 


36o  THE  TIDEWAY 

years  or  more.  An  excellent  lady.  But  only  a  most 
devoted  son  could  think  her  in  the  least  like  Eleanor 
Winton." 

They  both  laughed,  and  Miss  Chipchase  looked  so 
like  digging  him  in  the  ribs  that  he  recoiled  a 
little. 

"Well,  well,"  said  she,  "I  must  congratulate  you. 
But  it's  very  good  of  me.  A  jilted  woman!  You 
were  to  have  met  me  under  the  stairs  at  Solway,  and 
you  never  turned  up.  .  .  .  But,  Sir  Oliver,  I 
don't  like  to  meet  you  just  here.  I  hope  you're  not 
going  in  there." 

She  wagged  her  head  towards  the  War  Office. 

"But  I  am,"  he  confessed.  "And  what's  more  I 
must  go  at  once.      I  have  an  appointment." 

"Poor  Eleanor!"  cried  the  really  good-natured 
woman  and  good-hearted  old  maid.  "Sir  Oliver,  If 
you  go  out  to  this  horrible  war  and  let  a  German  kill 
you,  I  shall  never  speak  to  you  again." 

"Why?"  asked  the  young  man,  holding  out  his 
hand,  and  laughing.    "You  may  get  to  heaven,  too." 

But  Miss  Chipchase,  as  she  pattered  on  her  way, 
could  only  go  on  repeating  to  herself  "Poor  Elea- 
nor," and  somehow  I  think  the  words  may  have  been 
heard  in  that  heaven  to  which  the  young  man  had 
made  such  light  allusion  as  a  little  prayer  for  his 
wife's  happiness  and  his  own  safe  return  to  her. 

Pattering  on  her  way,  Miss  Chipchase  came  to  the 
Cathedral,  and  into  it  she  walked,  though  no  service 
was  going  on,  and  she  had  very  little  taste  for  either 
religion  or  architecture.  She  crept  into  a  corner,  and 
put  up  a  little  prayer  for  the  young  creatures  who 
had  been  man  and  wife  so  few  hours,  of  whom  one, 
at  the  inexorable  call  of  duty,  was  leaving  his  new- 
born happiness  in  God's  great  hands,  to  find  again, 
or  lose,  as  He  might  choose.  It  is  not  for  me  to  put 
down  the  homely,  sincere  words  of  her  entreaty; 


'POOR  ELEANOR!"  361 

but  we  may  know  what  her  thoughts  were  like,  and 
they  were  something  of  this  sort: 

"He  has  no  father.  Eh!  how  he  needs  one  to 
lead  and  protect  him  now.  If  /  can  pity  the  poor 
things  .  .  .  surely.  .  .  .  She  must  have  suf- 
fered enough — all  those  sad  lonely  years.  Since 
the  other  brave  lad  was  taken  she  has  had  no  one, 
till  now.  Not  this  one,  too.  Oh,  not  this  one  too. 
For  mercy,  not  him  as  well.  To  give  her  the  first 
sip  of  happiness  and  take  it  away,  it  would  be  like 
making  a  promise  and  not  keeping  it.  Oh,  let  it 
be  kept !  I  know  it  will.  .  .  .  He  must  come 
back.  Wounded  perhaps;  but  alive.  Alive;  and  to 
live  and  see  his  own  child.     Please,  please,  please. 

•  •  •  • 

The  old  maid  (she  was  ten  years  older  than  she 
had  pretended)  toddled  home;  but  next  day  she  pat- 
tered back:  and  every  day  for  three  months  she 
came  to  the  same  shady  corner,  behind  the  pillar,  in 
the  great  dim  fane.  It  became  almost  a  superstition 
with  her — as  if  to  omit  it  would  be  a  menace  to  the 
life  she  pleaded  for.  All  over  England,  Ireland, 
Scotland,  Wales,  all  over  France  and  far-off,  little- 
known  Russia,  millions  were  doing  as  she  did.  She 
would  not  let  herself  off  her  share.  Rain  or  fog 
(and  damp  weather  set  the  rheumatism  to  active 
work  in  her),  snow  or  shine,  she  crept  daily  to  her 
quiet  unobserved  place  and  made  her  untiring  prayer. 
She,  in  worldly  things  so  talkative,  never  told  any- 
one:  only  she  would  come,  and  plead  and  plead. 
Often  (for  she  did  say  her  prayers)  she  had  asked 
for  odd-enough  things,  for  stocks  to  go  up,  and 
money  that  she  did  not  need  to  come  into  her  pocket. 
But  now  she  only  asked  for  the  one  thing,  and  left 
the  shares  alone. 

In  the  drear  November  days  she  read  In  her  news- 
papers of  "Captain  Sir  Oliver  Morland,   Queen's 


362  THE  TIDEWAY 

Own  Cambrian  Rifles" — and  his  name  was  among 
those  supposed  to  have  been  killed, 

"I  won't  believe  it,"  she  whimpered:  trying  hard 
not  to.  "If  I  had  to  believe  that — I  couldn't  believe 
anything  any  more." 

She  flung  the  horrible  paper  away:  and  rang  for 
her  maid,  and  demanded  hat  and  outdoor  things. 

"It's  raining,  ma'am,"  the  maid  objected,  "sleet- 
ing, and  a  cold  east  wind." 

"I'm  going  out.  Hold  your  tongue,  Simson;  and 
get  me  ready.   Tell  Porkins  to  whistle  for  a  taxi." 

And  out  she  went. 

"Wait  for  me  here,"  she  told  the  driver,  as  near 
to  the  Abbey  as  she  could  get.   "I  shan't  be  long." 

She  was  not  long.  But,  inside,  in  her  dim,  shad- 
owy corner  she  demanded  (almost  desperately)  in 
defiance  of  all  logic  that  it  mightn't  be  true. 

Nor  was  it  true.  Captain  Sir  Oliver  Morland,  a 
later  telegram  informed  the  War  Oflice,  was  wound- 
ed, and  had  been  missing,  but  was  alive,  and  in  no 
danger  of  death.  But  though  he  kept  Christmas 
with  his  wife,  he  had  only  a  left  arm  with  which 
to  raise  his  glass  to  drink  her  health. 

"Oh,  dear,"  thought  Miss  Chlpchase,  "I  should 
have  asked  for  both  arms.  However,  it  will  keep 
him  at  home,  and  that's  what  I  meant." 


JOHN  HARDWICK'S  LUCK 
I 

JOHN  Hardwick  was  glad  enough  when  his  inter- 
view with  Mary  Layering  was  over.  And  that 
in  itself  was  a  circumstance  striking  enough  to  merit 
notice.  For  a  time  had  been  when  the  difficulty  was 
to  make  up  his  mind  to  leave  her.  In  those  days 
their  leave-taking  had  been  wonderfully  protracted, 
and  between  John's  first  farewell  and  his  last,  half 
an  hour  often  slipped  unheeded  by. 

Some  men  have  many  flirtations;  John  had  never 
indulged  in  one.  And  some  are  always  in  love  and 
out  again  half  a  dozen  times  a  year.  Jack  Retallack, 
for  instance,  who  lived  in  the  same  "diggings"  with 
Hardwick,  boasted,  with  some  reason,  that  he  gen- 
erally made  one  suit  of  clothes  last  him  through 
three  engagements.  But  Jack  Retallack  and  John 
Hardwick  were  very  different  men.  No  one  ever 
called  Hardwick  "Jack"  and  no  one  ever  spoke 
of  Mr.  Retallack.  The  latter  was  a  month  or  two 
the  older,  but  the  grave,  rather  severe  manner  of 
Hardwick  made  people  think  him  the  senior. 

John  Hardwick  was  a  dark  pale  man,  with  rather 
thin  lips,  and  keen  solemn  eyes.  Jack  Retallack  had 
curly,  light  hair,  childish  blue  eyes,  and  warm,  red 
lips  that  were  forever  smiling.  As  has  been  said, 
Jack  had  often  been  engaged,  but  no  one  ever 
expected  to  hear  of  his  being  married.  But  John 
Hardwick  was  a  man  of  whose  marriage  one  would 
probably  hear  rather  than  of  his  engagement.  He 
had  the  faculty  of  keeping  his  affairs  to  himself, 
without  conscious  effort,  or  any  definite  plan  in  so 
doing. 

Z^2 


364  THE  TIDEWAY 

Nevertheless,  he  had  been,  if  not  explicitly,  to  all 
intents  and  purposes,  engaged  to  Mary  Layering, 
and  now  such  engagement  was  to  be  entirely  at  an 
end  between  them. 

"You  have  every  right  to  reproach  me  if  you 
like,"  he  had  said,  "but  I  will  not  allow  you  to  con- 
sider yourself  engaged  to  me ;  and  I  am  going  away." 

Though  he  said  this  he  did  not  expect  Mary  to 
reproach  him.  She  was  not  a  woman  prone  to  re- 
proaches, and  she  knew  well  that,  in  spite  of  his 
words,  John  did  not  really  accuse  himself  of  any 
fault  in  her  regard. 

"No,"  she  said,  "you  could  not  help  loving  me, 
and  you  could  not  help  making  me  love  you :  there 
was  no  making,  it  came  of  itself — inevitably.  Be- 
cause we  were  meant  to  love  each  other." 

John  smiled  rather  grimly. 

"That  seems  a  hard  destiny,  if  we  are  not  also 
meant  to  marry  each  other,"  he  observed. 

"We  are." 

He  shrugged  his  shoulders  a  little. 

"We  shall  certainly  marry  each  other,"  she  said. 
"Your  going  away  now  will  make  no  difference." 

"I  will  not  let  you  hold  yourself  engaged  to  me; 
I  may  never  come  back.  Certainly  I  shall  not  come 
back  unless  I  have  what  at  present  I  see  no  chance 
of — enough  to  marry  you  without  your  losing  any- 
thing." 

"John,  why  will  you  persist  in  that?  What  do  I 
care  for  the  things  I  should  lose?  I  would  give  them 
up  to  be  your  wife  to-morrow." 

"It  is  no  use.  I  will  not  marry  you — neither  to- 
morrow nor  in  twenty  years'  time,  unless  I  can  give 
you  a  home  fit  for  one  who  has  had  such  a  home 
as  yours  .    .    .     Good-by." 

"I  will  not  say  Good-by."  .  .  .  And  you,  are 
you  to  hold  yourself  engaged  to  me?" 


JOHN  HARDWICK'S  LUCK         365 

"I   will   marry   no   one    else    .     .     .      Good-by, 

Mary." 

"Nor  will  I  marry  anyone  else  but  you.  So  we 
are  still  engaged,  wherever  you  go." 

"No,  Mary,  we  are  not  engaged.  Will  you  say 
'Good-by'?" 

"I  will  say  anything  else.  I  will  say  'Farewell,' 
and  I  will  say  'God  bless  you' ;  you  cannot  make  me 
say  'Good-by'." 

"I  would  rather  be  blessed  by  you  than  by  anyone 
on  earth,  Mary.  But  say  'Good-by,'  too.  It  is  only 
a  contraction  for  God  be  with  you !" 

"God  be  with  you,  dear.  I  do  not  like  contrac- 
tions; I  will  not  say  good-by." 

II 

Whether  she  would  say  good-by  or  not  he  was 
gone,  and  for  a  long  time  she  was  to  see  him  no 
more ;  nor  was  it  at  all  likely  that  he  would  write  to 
her.  Nevertheless,  Mary  Lavering  neither  pined  nor 
grew  pale.  Her  nature  was  loyal  and  steadfast,  and 
she  had  a  steadfast  trust  and  patience. 

As  for  John,  his  disposition  was  averse,  almost 
equally,  from  despair  to  sanguine  confidence. 

In  his  heart  he  intended  to  marry  Mary,  and  knew 
that  in  spite  of  all  difficulty  he  would  do  it.  But  at 
present  there  seemed  no  chance  of  it. 

He  had  never  known  what  to  expect  from  his 
uncle  (the  only  relation  he  had  ever  known),  but 
he  had  certainly  expected  something  considerable. 
The  old  man,  so  far  as  he  knew,  had  no  one  else 
to  leave  his  money  to,  and  he  was  reputed  to  be 
rich.  Old  Reuben  Hardwick  had  lived  sparingly, 
but  it  was  universally  said  that  he  did  so  out  of  miser- 
liness, and  not  at  all  from  poverty.  "All  the  better 
for  John,"  people  said;  and  the  young  man  himself 
had  heard  something  of  their  whisperings.     They 


366  THE  TIDEWAY 

had  never  seemed  very  fond  of  each  other;  In  fact, 
old  Reuben  loved  nothing  but  money,  and  his  nephew 
was  not  of  a  specially  affectionate  disposition.  One 
would  have  needed  a  very  affectionate  disposition 
indeed  to  grow  fond  of  Reuben  Hardwick ! 

John  Hardwick  had  for  two  years  lived  at  Furze- 
don  Regis,  and  had  only  visited  his  uncle  from  time 
to  time.  For  Galeham,  in  the  fens,  was  a  hundred 
miles  off,  and  the  young  engineer  had  neither  time 
nor  money  to  spare.  Nor  were  two  such  men  likely 
to  correspond  much  by  letter. 

And  now  old  Reuben  was  dead,  and  it  did  not 
seem  that  his  nephew  was  to  be  any  better  off  for  it. 
The  old  man  had  died  suddenly,  and  search  where 
they  would,  no  will  could  be  found.  Nor  was  any 
money  to  be  discovered,  though  the  mattresses  and 
chair-seats  of  the  cottage  at  Galeham  were  popularly 
supposed  to  be  stuffed  with  Bank  of  England  notes. 

It  was  after  old  Reuben's  funeral  that  John  Hard- 
wick went  back  to  Furzedon,  and  told  Mary  Laver- 
ing  that  there  must  be  now  no  engagement  between 
them.  He  had  allowed  himself  ♦:o  fall  in  love  with 
her  believing  that  he  had  good  prospects;  his  pros- 
pects had  now  receded  into  the  dimmest  distance. 

Immediately  after  his  departure  from  Furzedon, 
John  Hardwick  applied  for  a  position  abroad,  and 
the  reply  he  received  was  encouraging,  though  he 
was  informed  that  no  appointment  could  be  hoped 
for  quite  at  once. 

Then  he  went  down  to  Galeham  in  the  fens  to 
wind  up  the  simple  affairs  there  that  remained  to  be 
attended  to.  There  was  to  be  a  sale  of  furniture  of 
the  cottage,  and  as  the  cottage  itself  had  been  his 
uncle's  it  was  to  be  sold  also.  As  next-of-kin,  the 
proceeds  would  be  his,  but  these  were  not  likely 
to  amount  to  much.  In  spite  of  their  professed  belief 
that  the   armchairs  were  padded  with  bank-notes, 


JOHN  HARD  WICK'S  LUCK         367 

no  one  would  be  likely  to  bid  the  value  of  one  bank- 
note for  any  one  of  the  chairs. 

Ill 

John  Hardwick  reached  Oxham  at  half-past  three, 
and  he  had  then  to  drive  in  a  spring  cart  four  miles 
across  the  fens  to  Galeham.  It  was  a  cheerless  and 
chilly  drive.  A  sulky,  black  wind  came  driving  in 
from  the  low  coast,  bringing  with  it  the  moaning  of 
the  wintry  sea.  Bad  weather  was  brewing  up,  and 
the  gulls  were  blown  in  upon  the  land ;  they  wheeled 
and  screamed  in  the  ghastly  gleams  of  pale,  level 
sunlight,  over  the  deathly  fens,  and  behind  all  was 
the  solemn  murmur  of  the  German  ocean. 

The  man  who  drove  Hardwick  was  a  stranger 
from  Lincoln,  and  made  no  conversational  efforts. 
As  for  John,  he  was  by  nature  a  silent  man,  and  he 
was  latterly  more  and  more  preoccupied.  Ten  weeks 
ago  he  had  come  down  like  this  to  Galeham,  sum- 
moned by  the  telegram  announcing  his  uncle's  death, 
and  like  this  he  had  been  driven  over  the  fens  from 
Oxham.    He  was  thinking  of  that  now. 

He  had  been  shocked  after  a  fashion,  and  even 
to  some  extent  grieved,  by  the  sudden  news  of  the 
death  of  his  only  kinsman.  He  had  come  down  in 
no  merry  mood,  but  he  had,  he  knew,  been  unable 
to  avoid  remembering  that  his  uncle's  death  would, 
as  he  took  for  granted,  improve  very  materially  his 
own  worldly  position,  and  enable  him  to  propose  im- 
mediate marriage  to  Mary  Lavering. 

That  was  early  in  September,  and  the  afternoon 
had  been  hot  and  sunny;  the  sea  had  lain  ever  so  blue 
then  beyond  its  saffron  belt  of  sand,  panting  in  the 
blazing  heat. 

The  cottage  that  his  late  uncle  had  occupied  was 
on  the  Oxham  side  of  Galeham,  and  stood  by  itself 
half  a  quarter-mile  outside  the  village,  so  that  John 


368  THE  TIDEWAY 

Hardwick's  arrival  was  noticed  by  none.  He  got 
down,  and  the  man  handed  down  his  bag,  was  paid, 
and  with  a  brief  greeting  turned  his  pony's  head  back 
toward  Oxham. 

John  stood,  half  idly,  half  absent-mindedly,  watch- 
ing him  as  the  cart  grew  smaller  and  smaller,  on  its 
way  across  the  straight  and  level  fen  road.  Then 
he  turned  in  to  the  cottage. 

It  was  much  as  he  had  seen  it  last,  except  that 
the  flower-plot  outside  was  more  untidy,  and  the 
whole  air  of  the  place  more  woebegone. 

There  was  an  old  deaf  caretaker  who  did  not 
hear  his  arrival;  he  found  her  in  the  kitchen  peeling 
potatoes,  and  she  told  him  she  had  lighted  a  fire  in 
the  parlor.  But  he  found  only  a  black  grate  with  a 
poker  stuck  up  against  it,  and  a  few  charred,  and 
evidently  damp,  sticks  under  the  coals. 

He  bade  her  light  the  fire  again  and  see  that  it 
burned  up.  Meanwhile  he  would  walk  out  for  half 
an  hour;  on  his  return  let  tea  be  ready. 

He  met  scarcely  anyone  in  the  village;  it  was  a 
straggling,  windy  place,  with  no  sign  of  life,  and 
Hardwick  returned  from  his  walk  a  little  colder  and 
a  little  more  depressed.  In  dull  and  solitary  silence 
he  had  his  tea,  and  then  followed  a  dull  and  solitary 
evening.  At  eight  o'clock  the  old  deaf  caretaker 
brought  him  a  chop  and  the  potatoes  he  had  seen  her 
peeling.  When  he  had  finished  she  removed  the 
tray  (she  had  not  thought  it  necessary  to  lay  the 
table)  and  brought  him  a  bed-candlestick.  She  bade 
him  good  night,  and  informed  him  that  she  had 
got  ready  the  old  master's  bedroom  for  him,  as  the 
other  let  the  rain  in  and  she  wasn't  rightly  sure  what 
the  weather  would  keep  like.  At  ten  o'clock  John 
Hardwick  himself  went  to  bed,  not  because  he  was 
sleepy,  but  because  it  was  better  than  sitting  alone 
in  the  dingy  parlor  downstairs. 


JOHN  HARDfVlCK'S  LUCK         369 

He  was  not  at  all  a  fanciful  man,  or  superstitious, 
but  it  did  occur  to  him  that  the  last  man  who  slept 
in  that  bed  had  never  wakened,  and  after  he  had 
put  out  the  light  he  lay  thinking  of  that  lonely  end- 
ing of  a  lonely,  unloving  life. 

And  when  he  slept  his  dreams  followed  the  cur- 
rent of  his  last  waking  thoughts.  It  was  natural 
enough  that  they  should,  except  that  he  was  a  man 
who  scarcely  ever  dreamed  at  all.  And  now  his 
dream  was  clear,  and  unconfused  and  very  definite. 
The  old  dead  man  in  whose  bed  he  lay  was  by  his 
side,  and  pointing  with  tremulous  hand  to  a  certain 
scene  or  picture,  and,  as  he  pointed,  his  lips  moved, 
as  when  one  who  is  tongue-tied  by  some  great  and 
sudden  shock  strives  to  speak  and  can  but  form  the 
words  with  silent  and  unsounding  lips.  The  scene 
to  which  he  pointed  his  claw-like,  quivering  fingers 
was  this : — 

Upon  a  point  of  land,  jutting  far  into  a  rock- 
strewn  sea,  there  seemed  a  grove  of  tropic  trees, 
tall  palms,  and  date  trees,  sandal  wood  and  tree 
ferns,  and  between  the  emerald  branches  flashed 
the  sapphire  sea.  Strange  birds  slid  down  from 
bough  to  bough,  blue  and  gold  and  scarlet,  and  mid- 
most of  all,  up  rose  one  huge  tree,  whose  like  the 
dreamer  had  never  seen  before.  Its  leaves  were 
shaped  like  the  fingers  of  a  giant  hand,  and  they 
were  of  a  wondrous  crimson,  the  bole,  tall  and 
scaly,  was  ruddy  brown,  the  flowers  alone  were 
green,  and  these  were  trumpet-shaped,  and  of  a 
heavy  fragrance,  the  sleeper  could  smell  plainly  in 
his  dream,  a  deathly,  overpowering  odor  such  as 
he  had  never  smelled.  It  was  all  so  living  and 
pictorial  that  our  John-a-Dreams  could  seem  to  hear 
the  sighing  of  the  sea  along  the  shore,  the  calling  of 
the  birds  of  gold  and  blue,  the  rustle  of  the  leaves 
upon  the  strange  and  unfamiliar  trees.     And  still 


370  THE  TIDEWAY 

the  old  dead  man  would  point  and  point,  and  seemed 
beside  himself  that  John  failed  still  to  see  what 
the  quivering  fingers  indicated. 

But  presently  a  large  red  bird,  so  like  the  leaves 
in  color  that,  sitting  still  among  them  it  had  passed 
unnoticed,  slid  shrieking  from  its  perch  and  fluttered 
to  a  branch  below.  And  John  now  noticed  where 
the  bird  had  been  around  a  white  object  half  hid- 
den among  the  ruddy  leaves,  and  to  that  he  under- 
stood at  length  the  old  man  pointed.  As  he 
dreamed  the  sleeper  seemed  to  be  raised  up  and 
close  to  the  object  which  at  first  he  could  neither 
see  nor  understand,  and  now  he  found  it  was  a 
naked  skull,  a  whitened  death's  head,  fixed  upon  a 
branch  of  the  unknown  tree  and  staring  with  empty 
eyeballs  forever  out  across  the  hot  and  panting 
sea.  But  were  they  empty — those  cavernous  sight- 
less spaces?  Nay,  in  one  there  gleamed  a  lurid 
crimson  light,  as  though  the  hollow  had  been  fitted 
with  a  crystal  globe  of  blood,  a  horrible,  wicked 
eye  of  fiery  crimson. 

For  ever  so  long  this  dream  had  seemed  to  last 
when  John  awoke.  He  struck  a  light  and  looked 
at  his  watch  to  find  that  it  was  half-past  one.  He 
remembered  that  it  was  the  hour  fixed  by  the  doc- 
tors as  that  of  old  Reuben's  death.  The  body  had 
been  found  at  half-past  seven,  and  had  then,  as 
the  doctors  asserted,  been  lifeless  for  six  hours. 

IV 

The  writer  trusts  that  it  will  be  admitted  that  he 
has  not  described  an  imaginative  or  romantic  rnan. 
Certainly  not  an  impressionable   and  superstitious 

one. 

Nevertheless,  John  Hardwick,  as  he  lay  abso- 
lutely wide   awake,   told  himself  frankly  that  the 


JOHN  HARDfVICK'S  LUCK         371 

situation  was  peculiar — peculiar,  and  somewhat 
"eerie,"  as  it  is  generally  called.  Outside  a  low- 
sobbing  feeble  gale  crept  round  the  solitary  cot- 
tage, and  then  went  on  its  way,  out  among  the 
lonely  fens.  Otherwise  there  was  dead  silence,  nay, 
not  dead  silence,  for  on  the  stairs  close  beside 
Hardwick's  door,  an  old  clock  ticked  loud  and 
solemnly;  the  same  clock  that  had  ticked  delib- 
erately out  the  old  miser's  life;  that  had  ruthlessly 
struck  his  death  hour.  Many  a  time,  no  doubt,  in 
the  sleeplessness  of  age,  he  had  lain  awake  as  his 
nephew  lay  now  in  his  bed,  listening  to  its  weary 
monotone. 

Oddly  enough,  in  such  a  man,  John  Hardwick 
was  convinced  that  his  dream  was  no  dream  at  all 
in  the  common  sense.  He  never  dreamed.  And  this 
had  been  not  like  any  dream.  He  had  been  a  wit- 
ness, an  actual  living  witness,  of  some  distant  scene, 
distant  but  real,  and  actually  existent,  as  he  felt  quite 
certain.  Hardwick  was  a  man  roughly  practical  and 
un-ideal  of  temperament,  nevertheless  he  was  con- 
vinced, and,  with  a  singular  directness,  he  hit  at 
once  on  something  very  near  the  truth. 

He  was  certain  that  there  was,  somewhere  on  the 
earth,  such  a  place  as  he  had  seen,  with  such  birds 
and  trees  and  shore.  And  that  the  last  sleeper  in 
that  bed  had,  in  the  supreme  moment  of  his  dis- 
solution, had  that  scene  pictured  on  his  brain,  and 
in  his  heart,  the  young  man  felt  convinced.  And 
this,  he  admitted  to  himself,  was  rather  gruesome, 
for  it  brought  the  old  dead  man  and  his  own  living 
self  into  so  odd  a  relation  now;  into  a  rather  ghastly 
and  altogether  unusual  telegraphic  connection — the 
living  with  the  dead,  in  the  very  place  of  death  of 
the  dead  person. 

Ultimately  John  Hardwick  slept  again,  and 
dreamlessly,  as  was  his  wont.     But  when  he  awoke 


372  THE  TIDEWAY 

in  response  to  the  old  deaf  caretaker's  loud  bang- 
ing at  his  door,  the  dream  was  not  forgotten.  Nor 
did  he,  as  we  shall  see,  ever  forget  it. 


Much  sooner  than  he  expected  John  Hardwick 
received  the  offer  of  an  appointment.  It  appeared 
that  the  native  ruler  of  the  Suleiman  Islands  wished 
to  build  roads  in  his  dominions,  and  even  a  light 
railway  in  the  principal  island,  and  had  been  per- 
suaded by  the  British  Resident  at  his  court  to  en- 
trust the  work  to  an  English  engineer.  The  Sulei- 
man Islands  are  a  long  way  off,  and  the  largest  of 
them  is  nearly  bisected  by  the  Equator.  They  are 
numerous  and  scrappy,  so  that  the  work  to  be  done 
was  not  likely  to  be  important.  Otherwise  it  would 
doubtless  have  been  offered  to  an  older  man  with 
more  reputation. 

John  Hardwick  was  given  a  week  to  make  up 
his  mind,  and  he  did  actually  accept  the  appoint- 
ment within  twenty-four  hours. 

He  lodged  within  a  minute's  walk  of  the  British 
Museum,  and  as  soon  as  he  had  read  the  letter  con- 
veying the  offer  of  the  appointment  he  put  on  his 
hat  and  walked  over  there.  Leaving  his  stick  at 
the  entrance  he  marched  into  the  library  and  wrote 
out  a  demand  for  "Encyclopaedia  Britannica,"  latest 
edition.  Vol.  SOL  to  SPA.  It  was  brought,  and 
he  turned  to  Suleiman  Islands  and  set  himself  to 
find  out  something  about  them. 

The  Suleiman  Islands,  he  learned,  are  365  in 
number  (what  important  group  of  islands  is  not?), 
and  lie  all  within  the  first  parallels  of  north  and 
south  latitude;  Jehar,  the  largest  and  seat  of  gov- 
ernment, being  divided  into  two  nearly  equal  parts 
by  the  Equator.     It  is  also  divided  by  a  range  of 


JOHN  HARDWICK'S  LUCK         373 

mountains  of  some  altitude,  so  that  the  climate  of 
the  capital  situated  near  their  summit  is  less  torrid 
than  would  be  expected.  Many  of  the  islands  are 
very  small,  some  mere  coral  islets  of  a  few  acres  in 
extent.  They  are  governed  by  a  native  sultan, 
nominally  under  the  suzerainty  of  the  Sultan  of 
Johore,  but  actually  independent.  Owing  to  the 
geographical  position  of  the  archipelago,  combined 
with  the  mountainous  character  of  the  larger  islands 
(which  are  volcanic  and  not  coralline  in  origin), 
the  fauna  and  flora  are  singularly  varied.  Hig- 
ginsia  Maniflorens  Rubra,  found  nowhere  else  on 
the  globe,  Is  a  native  of  these  remote  islands  of  the 
Pacific. 

As  Hardwick  left  the  Museum  he  was  accosted 
by  an  acquaintance  from  the  country.  Jack  Retallack, 
who  seemed  unreasonably  pleased  by  the  chance 
meeting. 

"I'm  going  in,"  explained  Retallack,  "to  consult 
an  authority  concerning  a  plant  I  found  the  other 
day."  Hardwick  knew  he  was  a  botanist,  and  had 
always  rather  looked  down  on  that  science  in  con- 
sequence. Like  many  rather  solemn  men,  he  mis- 
took the  other's  boyish  light-heartedness  for 
flightlness. 

Hardwick  told  him  of  the  offered  appointment. 

"Suleiman  Islands!"  said  Retallack,  meditatively, 
"that's  where  Higginsia  Rubra  Maniflora  grows. 
If  you  come  across  it  I  wish  to  goodness  you  would 
send  me  home  a  seed  or  two  if  you  can  find  any. 
But  it's  very  rare,  ev€n  there,  and  they  say  it  seeds 
only  once  in  twenty  years." 

"What's  it  like?"  interrupted  Hardwick. 

"Well,  I  can't  describe  It,  never  having  seen  it. 
But  there's  no  mistaking  It,  If  you  do  see  it,  for 
the  leaves  are  blood  color,  and  are  shaped  like  an 
outspread  hand.     The  flower — when  you  catch  it  In 


374  THE  TIDEWAY 

flower — Is  enormous,  and  of  a  brilliant  parrot 
green  like  a  long  green  trumpet;  the  seed  is  as  big 
as  a  pigeon's  egg,  or  nearly,  and  is  ruby  color,  much 
the  color  of  the  leaf." 

VI 

John  Hardwick  accepted  the  post  and  went  out 
by  the  next  boat;  his  friend  at  the  Colonial  Office 
cabling  out  meanwhile  that  he  was  being  sent;  his 
credentials  he  took  with  him.  From  London  to 
Singapore  by  P.  &  O.  took  thirty-three  days,  and 
that  was  a  day  short  of  the  advertised  time.  At 
Singapore  he  had  to  wait  five  days  for  the  "ditcha" 
that  was  to  take  him  on  to  the  Suleimans.  Unlike 
the  P.  &  O.,  this  was  two  days  behind  Its  time,  so 
the  five  days  became,  In  the  result,  seven. 

The  voyage  In  the  coasting  steamer  was  unspeak- 
ably wearisome.  After  the  luxury  and  space  of 
the  great  liner,  with  Its  round  of  amusements  and 
host  of  pleasant  companions,  the  dirty,  rickety 
"tramp,"  Ill-found  and  scarcely  seaworthy,  seemed 
a  dingy  and  unclean  prison.  Hardwick  was  the 
sole  passenger,  and  the  skipper  and  his  mate  were 
no  sort  of  companions  for  a  gentleman;  they  were 
both  half-castes,  and  surly,  scampish-looking  ruf- 
fians at  that.  But  there  Is  little  traffic  to  the  Sulei- 
mans, and  John  Hardwick  knew  there  was  no 
choice;  a  somewhat  taciturn  man,  he  took  refuge 
in  silent  isolation. 

On  the  fifteenth  day  (the  voyage  was  to  take 
twenty  or  twenty-one)  the  least  experienced  sailor 
could  not  have  failed  to  see  signs  of  mischief  brew- 
ing, and  two  hours  after  sunset  the  tornado  broke. 
From  the  first  Hardwick  was  certain  that  with  such 
a  craft  they  would  never  weather  It.  Nor  was  he, 
as  it  turned  out,  deceived.     The  captain  was  more 


JOHN  HARD  WICK'S  LUCK         375 

than  half-drunk,  the  mate  almost  beside  himself 
with  terror,  the  crew  (and  the  vessel  was  shame- 
fully undermanned)  might  have  been  decent  fellows 
in  better  hands,  but  were  nearly  useless  as  it  was. 

The  darkness  was  indescribable ;  a  palpable,  ma- 
terial blackness,  like  the  ancient  darkness  of  Egypt. 
At  the  most  hopeless  hour  of  night,  two  hours  after 
midnight,  the  ship  struck  and  began  almost  instantly 
to  sink,  sliding  back  into  deep  water. 

John  Hardwick  was  a  splendid  swimmer,  but 
whither  should  one  swim,  in  such  utter  blackness 
and  in  such  a  sea !  Apart  from  the  question  of 
actual  fear  there  was  something  unearthly  in  strik- 
ing out  thus  into  the  impenetrable  blackness.  But 
the  water  was  at  least  warm,  and  above  all  things, 
it  was  necessary  to  get  free  of  the  sinking  craft. 

More,  as  we  say,;  by  luck  than  management, 
Hardwick  was  carried  in  the  direction  where  alone 
lay  any  hope  of  safety.  After  what  seemed  an  age, 
but  was  really  less  than  a  quarter  of  an  hour,  he 
suddenly  felt  a  beach  beneath  his  feet,  and,  scarcely 
able  to  believe  in  his  deliverance,  he  climbed  a 
steeply  shelving  shore  and  was  on  land.  Still  the 
driving  foam  drenched  him,  and  the  appalling  din 
of  wind  and  wave  and  breaker  continued  to  daze 
his  numbed  senses. 

VII 

Day  broke  slow  and  sullen,  but  the  tornado  had 
passed  upon  its  way,  and  hour  by  hour  the  mad- 
dened, tortured  sea  grew  calmer. 

When  it  was  fully  light  John  Hardwick  ven- 
tured to  move  and  look  about.  He  was  on  an  islet 
not  more  than  half  a  mile  in  breadth,  and  not  a 
mile  in  length,  but  comparatively  high  at  its  eastern 
end,  behind  which  the  sickly  light  was  growing.     It 


^ 


376  THE  TIDEWAY 

was  thickly  clothed  with  trees,  and  a  corona  of  rock 
islets,  some  supporting  a  single  palm,  some  quite 
naked,  wreathed  around  it.  Of  the  ship  there  was 
no  sign  whatever,  nor  of  any  of  its  crew  scarcely  a 
sign  yet,  even  of  Its  wreckage. 

John  Hardwick  clambered  up  the  steep  and 
rocky  shore,  and  walked  Inland,  partly  to  stretch  his 
stiffened  limbs,  partly  out  of  a  natural  curiosity  to 
see  more  of  his  solitary  domain.  Perhaps  some 
of  his  late  companions  might  be  there  hidden  among 
the  trees  or  out  of  sight  upon  the  other  shore.  But 
by  noon  he  had  found  no  one,  and  was  finally  con- 
vinced that  he  had  the  island  to  himself.  It  had, 
however,  a  large  population  of  land  and  sea  birds; 
the  former  of  strange  and  gaudy  brilliance  of 
plumage ;  and  there  were  myriads  of  a  small  and 
pretty  animal  of  the  gazelle  tribe,  but  scarcely  big- 
ger than  a  hare. 

Growing  at  last  very  hungry  he  made  a  nutri- 
tious meal  of  sea-fowls'  eggs,  of  which  there  were 
thousands  all  along  the  shore.  He  had  to  eat  them 
raw,  and  this  he  found  distasteful,  but  at  least,  he 
thought,  there  seemed  no  fear  of  actual  starvation. 
He  had  seen  several  good  springs  of  fresh  water, 
and  there  were  abundant  fruits,  so  he  was  without 
present  anxiety.  Concerning  the  menaces  of  the 
future,  John  Hardwick  was  not  liable  to  anxiety. 
After  his  meal  he  rested  for  a  while,  then  con- 
tinued his  explorations.  In  the  center  of  the  Isle 
there  rose  a  mound  topped  with  a  bald  green  patch, 
free  of  trees  or  bush,  and  toward  this  he  bent  his 
rather  aimless  steps.  He  was  soon  there,  and  the 
beauty  of  the  outlook  repaid  the  brief  exertion. 
The  sapphire  sea  lay  all  about  to  east  and  west  and 
north  and  south,  but  eastward  and  northward  it 
was  set  with  countless  emeralds,  islets  like  his  own 
of  varying  size  and  form. 


JOHN  HARDWICK'S  LUCK  377 

The  gloomy  dawn  had  brightened  to  a  moon  of 
cloudless  heaven  and  broad  and  golden  sunshine. 
John  Hardwick  flung  himself  down  upon  the 
smooth  turf  and  thought  upon  the  strange  destiny 
that  had  set  him  here  alone,  the  sole  monarch  of 
an  unpeopled  kingdom  in  the  tropic  sea.  What  was 
most  strange  was  that  he  had  an  odd  sense  of  fa- 
miliarity with  it  all,  as  though  the  scene  were  in 
truth  familiar. 

Just  beneath  him,  almost  overgrown  with  brush 
and  tangle,  was  a  jutting  spire  of  coral  rock.  It 
was  tilted,  as  it  were  eastward,  and,  but  for  the 
surrounding  growth,  would  have  cast  a  shadow  like 
the  index  of  a  sundial. 

Some  idle  impulse  made  the  young  man  descend 
and  examine  it  more  closely.  He  began  to  tear 
away  from  it  the  circling  bonds  of  creeping  plants 
that  had  flung  themselves  about  it,  and  presently, 
deeply  cut  into  the  eastern  face  of  the  rock,  he  came 
upon  two  letters,  carved  indubitably  by  a  human 
hand;  the  letters  were  R.H.  They  were  very  fa- 
miliar initials  to  him — those  of  his  old  uncle's  name, 
Reuben  Hardwick. 

Oddly  enough,  a  red  flush  mounted  to  John 
Hardwick's  dark  pale  face,  as  he  stood  staring  at 
the  carved  letters  in  mute  surprise.  He  was  quite 
certain  that  no  hand  but  the  old  miser's  had  cut 
them  there:  common  as  the  initials  were  he  recog- 
nized their  form  and  character. 

His  unforgotten  dream  again  asserted  itself,  and 
the  unromantic  practical  man  was  convinced  of  his 
destiny,  of  the  strange  web  of  fate  that  had  brought 
him  hither.  He  recognized  in  all  his  surroundings 
the  island  of  his  dream. 

He  set  his  back  against  the  rock  and  looked 
straight  before  him;  his  gaze  showed  him  the  east- 
ern promontory  of  the  isle  almost  hidden  by  a  rising 
knoll  five  hundred  yards  away.     Thither  he  made 


378  THE  TIDEWAY 

his  way,  and  gaining  the  summit  of  the  knoll,  he 
saw  beneath  him,  blazing  amid  the  tangled  green 
of  the  tropic  foliage  a  blood-red  patch  of  color. 
His  heart  beat  as  he  made  his  way  toward  it,  and 
five  minutes  later  he  saw  before  him  the  very  scene 
of  his  dream.  High  overhead  towered  the  blood- 
red  tree,  with  weird  leaves  like  the  spread  fingers  of 
a  ghastly  crimson  hand,  and  great  trumpet  flowers 
of  brightest  parrot  green.  Close  beneath  was  the 
sapphire  glancing  of  the  sea,  the  saffron  belt  of 
sanded  shore,  and,  all  about,  the  flashing  of  the 
strange  birds,  blue  and  gold  and  purple,  that  slid 
from  bough  to  bough,  and  cracked  the  hot  silence 
of  a  tropic  noontide  with  their  astonished  chatter- 
ings — for  a  quarter  of  a  century  no  human  eye  had 
looked  upon  the  scene;  the  oldest  parrot  of  them 
all  had  never  seen  a  man. 

Suddenly  as  John  Hardwick  gazed  upward  into 
the  mysterious  red-leafed  tree,  a  bird,  also  of  the 
parrot  kind,  but  of  almost  the  same  sanguine  tinc- 
ture as  the  foliage  of  the  tree,  spread  its  wings 
and  fluttered  down  from  the  perch  where  It  had 
sat  weirdly  watching  the  strange  invader. 

Behind,  gleaming  white  among  the  red,  was  a 
death's  head,  staring  for  ever  towards  the  rising 
sun.  A  lambent  weird  flame  of  crimson  fire  seemed 
to  pour  from  one  eye-place ;  the  other  was  dark  and 
vacant. 

It  was  no  easy  matter  to  climb  the  tree  and  sit 
where  the  bird  had  been  upon  the  lofty  branch,  but 
Hardwick  did  it,  and  when  he  stood  again  upon  the 
ground  he  held  in  his  almost  trembling  hand  a  huge 
roundel  of  liquid,  crimson  flame,  the  Ruby  Eye,  the 
largest  ruby  in  the  world. 

VIII 

For  five  weeks  John  Hardwick  lived  alone  upon 
the  isle  and  the  presence  of  the  Great  Red  Eye  be- 


JOHN  HARDWICK'S  LUCK         379 

came  hateful  to  him.  There  was  the  ever-present 
sentiment  of  Fate's  mockery  that  had  given  him  a 
kingdom  and  a  king's  wealth,  and  taken  all  else 
away.  And  there  was  the  horrible  weird  stare  of 
that  unwinking  eye  of  flame. 

Nevertheless  he  was  not  one  of  those  who  having 
in  so  strange  a  manner  found  such  a  gem  would 
fling  it  away  or  lose  it. 

And  at  last  his  lonely  abandonment  came  to  an 
end.  One  morning,  seated  on  the  mound  at  the 
center  of  the  isle,  he  saw  rising  out  of  the  southern 
horizon,  a  gleaming  sail;  and  hour  by  hour  it  grew, 
till  an  hour  or  so  before  sunset  it  was  close  to  his 
seagirt  territory.  His  signals  had  been  seen,  and 
rescue  and  escape  were  close  at  hand. 

At  length  a  boat  put  out,  and  he  went  down  to 
meet  it.  He  had  nothing  to  pack  up,  nothing  to 
take  away,  except  one  round  stone,  not  larger  than 
a  bantam's  egg,  and  yet,  tattered  and  ragged  as  he 
was,  he  knew,  as  he  walked  down  to  the  shore,  that 
he  had  hidden  among  his  rags  much  greater  wealth 
than  that  of  the  owner  of  yonder  trim  yacht,  who- 
ever he  might  be. 

The  yacht  was  English,  and  the  castaway  met 
with  an  English  welcome  and,  as  the  cruise  was  one 
of  pleasure  only,  and  restricted  by  no  necessities  of 
time  or  destination,  the  good-natured  owner  at  once 
declared  that  he  would  take  Hardwick  to  Jehar, 
and  this  accordingly  was  done.  The  British  Resi- 
dent listened  with  interest  to  the  account  of  Hard- 
wick's  shipwreck  and  five  weeks'  residence  upon  the 
coral  island;  but  his  welcome  struck  John  as  being 
the  reverse  of  warm. 

"The  truth  is,"  he  explained,  when  the  tale  of 
adventure  was  finished,  "your  arrival  is  a  serious 
embarrassment  to  me.     I  did  not  expect  you." 

"You  guessed  I  had  been  wrecked,  and  did  not 


38o  THE  TIDEWAY 

expect  to  see  me  alive!"  said  Hardwick,  his  dark 
face  flushing  angrily. 

"The  fact  is  I  did  not  expect  to  see  you  at  all.  I 
was  absent  when  Garstang's  cable  arrived;  as  soon 
as  I  got  home  I  cabled  to  him  to  stop  your  de- 
parture. Hearing  no  reply,  I  supposed  I  had  been 
in  time;  I  did  not  know  you  had  been  so  prompt." 

"To  stop  my  departure !  Had  you  any  objection 
to  my  appointment?" 

"None  whatever.  But  the  Sultan  had.  He  re- 
fused at  once,  and  peremptorily,  to  sanction  it." 

"Refused?    And  why?" 

"That  I  cannot  tell.  At  first  he  made  no  objec- 
tion at  all.  But  on  the  following  day  he  sent  for 
me,  and  stated  his  determination  not  to  employ  you; 
nor  will  any  persuasion  alter  his  decision." 

"Can  I  see  him!" 

"I  scarcely  know.     I  will  ask  him." 

The  Resident  went  at  once  to  the  palace.  In  an 
hour  he  returned. 

"I  have  induced  him  to  grant  you  an  interview; 
it  was  with  great  difficulty.  You  had  better  come 
at  once  before  he  changes  his  mind — before  he  has 
time  to  see  his  mother." 

John  Hardwick  stared. 

"I  am  sure,"  said  the  Resident,  "that  It  was  some 
machination  of  the  old  Begum's  that  made  him  turn 
against  you  in  the  beginning.  He  was  perfectly  well 
disposed  at  first.  She  is  a  bigoted  and  very  super- 
stitious old  woman,  of  a  very  strong  character; 
clever,  determined  and  politic,  but  utterly  retro- 
grade, and  anti-European.  She  has  persuaded  the 
Sultan  not  only  to  refuse  to  ratify  your  appoint- 
ment, but  also  to  relinquish  the  engineering  plan 
altogether. 

As  they  arrived  at  the  palace  the  Resident  added : 
"You  will,  of  course,  be  reimbursed  for  your  loss 


JOHN  HARDWICK'S  LUCK         381 

of  time,  and  all  that,  and  generously,  you  may  be 
sure;  the  Sultan  is  immensely  rich  and  most  open- 
handed.   So,  to  do  her  justice,  is  Aijamand  Begum." 

The  Sultan,  a  young  man  of  three  and  twenty 
years  of  age,  received  the  Resident  with  distinction, 
Hardwick  with  courtesy,  but  coldly,  and  with  evi- 
dent displeasure.  Hardwick  was  interested  and 
pleased  with  the  young  potentate;  his  skin  was  fair, 
and  the  character  and  expression  of  his  face  was 
earnest,  dignified  and  noble.  But  it  had  some  ele- 
ments of  weakness.  To  the  great  surprise  of  the 
Resident  the  Sultan  withdrew  into  an  inner  cabinet 
and  signed  to  Hardwick  alone  to  follow  him. 

Then  he  spoke  in  a  low,  cold  voice,  courteously, 
but  without  any  smile  of  encouragement  or  polite- 
ness. 

"The  Resident  has  told  you  that  I  have  refused 
to  sanction  your  appointment.  I  will  tell  you  why. 
Afterwards  you  can,  if  you  choose,  tell  him.  I 
would  not  tell  him,  for  I  have  no  desire  to  prejudice 
him  against  you,  who  may  be  an  innocent  man.  As 
soon  as  I  have  given  this  explanation  I  shall  expect 
you  to  return  to  the  British  Residency  and  not 
leave  its  precincts  till  you  can  be  deported,  which 
will  be  in  a  few  days,  from  my  dominions," 

Hardwick  was  astonished,  and  looked  it. 

"And  what,"  he  inquired  calmly,  "is  your  High- 
ness's  objection  to  me?" 

"My  objection  is  first  of  all  to  your  name.  Many 
years  ago  there  came  to  the  court  of  my  father  an 
English  adventurer  called  Roo  Ben  Ardwick. 
Your  name  is  also  Ben  Ardwick." 

"Excuse  me,  it  is  John  Hardwick.  But  Reuben 
Hardwick  was  my  uncle." 

"You  admit  it!  Well,  that  man  won  the  entire 
confidence  of  my  father,  but  he  abused  it;  he  stole 
from  the  treasury  the  Great  Eye,  the  talisman  of 


382  THE  TIDEWAY 

our  dynasty;  a  ruby  that  in  itself  was  worth  a  hun- 
dred kings'  ransoms,  and  was  the  amulet,  the  load- 
stone of  our  royal  race.  He  stole  it  and  escaped  in  a 
coasting  ship,  but  Fate  followed  him.  The  ship  was 
wrecked  and  he  was,  no  doubt,  drowned;  but  with 
him  the  Great  Eye  of  Suleiman  sank  also  to  the 
secret  depths  of  the  ocean.  Were  it  known  among 
our  people,  we  might  lose  the  very  throne  itself, 
for  the  old  prophecy  saith :  'Till  the  Red  Eye  sees 
no  longer  the  line  of  Suleiman  shall  reign  on  the 
islands  of  the  sea.'  If  our  people  knew  that  the 
Great  Eye  had  sunk  into  the  dark  ocean,  they  might 
rise  against  us,  as  abandoned  by  Fate." 

Hardwick  listened  with  a  quiet  interest. 

"And  your  Highness  thinks  that  my  name  is  evil- 
omened;  that  I  might  bring  you  further  loss  and 
trouble." 

"Perhaps,"  the  young  prince  answered  patiently. 
"At  any  rate,  your  name  is  insufferable.  It  must 
not  be  heard  here.    As  for  your  loss.  .  .  ." 

"Nay,  I  have  lost  nothing.  If  you  send  me  away 
I  might  go  richer  than  I  came.  But  .  .  ."  he  thrust 
his  hand  deep  into  his  breast  and  drew  forth  a 
leathern  bag.  "Your  Highness,"  he  said,  "I  am 
come  to  repair,  not  to  complete  the  loss  that  came 
with  my  uncle.  How  he  passed  his  youth  I  know 
not.  That  it  was  passed  in  outlandish  countries  I 
often  heard.  But  that  he  was  not  drowned  I  know. 
He  had  the  character  of  wealth,  but  showed  no 
signs  of  it.  He  died,  and  I  should  have  been  his 
heir,  but  he  seemed  to  leave  nothing  for  me  to  in- 
herit." 

Then  John  Hardwick,  in  a  few  concise  sentences, 
told  the  prince  his  story,  and  ending  it  drew  from 
its  leathern  bag  the  huge  Red  Eye  of  Fire. 

"One  of  my  name  took  away  the  stone,"  he  said, 
"and  I  give  it  back  again," 


JOHN  HARDWICK'S  LUCK         383 

"And  you  give  it  back  thus !  When  no  one 
guessed  of  its  existence,  when  you  could  so  easily 
have  taken  it  away  forever;  when  you  have  been 
so  poorly  treated  by  us  here.  You  give  it  back,  and 
you  make  no  conditions !" 

"It  is  yours,"  said  the  Englishman  quietly. 
"How  can  I  make  any  condition?" 

The  Sultan  smiled  gravely. 

"You  are  like  a  prince,"  he  said,  "and  I  am  also 
a  prince." 

The  British  Resident  was  called  to  their  counsels. 
With  him  the  Sultan  spoke  aside  for  a  few  mo- 
ments, then  the  Resident  turned  to  Hardwick. 

"His  Highness  decides  to  carry  out  the  engineer- 
ing works  as  he  at  first  intended,  only  on  a  much 
larger  scale,  and  only  on  condition  that  you  under- 
take them;  he  offers  you  two  thousand  a  year  for 
five  years  and  a  retaining  fee  of  twenty  thousand 
pounds  down." 


A  PRELUDE  IN  WINTER 


It's  silly,"  said  Rupert  de  Grandmaison  to  him- 
self, "but  it's  true — I've  lost  my  way:  if  there 
can  be  said  to  be  any  way  ..."  and  he  peered 
through  the  gathering  dusk  to  left  and  right,  straight 
ahead,  and  turned  to  look  backward,  as  he  had  done 
twenty  times  already,  with  as  little  result  as  ever. 

"  'Oh,  Salisbury  Plain  is  bleak  and  bare,'  "  he 
quoted  to  himself,  also  for  the  twentieth  time,  add- 
ing, "I  wish  I  could  say  (like  the  Reverend  Thomas 
Ingoldsby), 

'At  least  so  I've  heard  many  persons  declare 
For  to  tell  the  truth  I've  never  been  there.' 
"I'm  there,   and  just  at  present  I'd  as  soon  be 
somewhere  else.    What's  it  going  to  do  next — snow 

"DM 

or  ram: 

As  to  that,  at  all  events,  he  was  not  long  in  doubt, 
for  the  snow  presently  began,  and  the  dim  light  that 
remained  was  soon  swallowed  up  in  it. 

"It's  silly  enough  to  be  lost,  but  it's  worse  than 
silly  to  find  oneself  benighted  as  well — ^de-cidedly 
awkward,'  as  the  cow  said  when  the  train  ran  over 
her.  No  train  hereabouts,  though.  No  anything. 
The  last  tree  was  half  an  hour  ago,  and  the  last 
house  was  an  hour  before  that :  and  the  old  deaf  man 
in  it  couldn't  understand  where  I  wanted  to  go  be- 
cause I  told  him  I  was  quite  ready  to  go  anywhere  if 
he  would  kindly  tell  me  the  way  there.  .  .  .  Quite 
Canadian  this:  ought  to  seem  homely,  but  it's  a  bit 
too  homely  when  nobody  seems  to  have  a  home  any- 
where round." 

Nevertheless  the  young  soldier  did  not  look  much 
depressed.  His  face  was  cheery,  and  so  was  his  voice, 

384 


A  PRELUDE  IN  WINTER  385 

and  so  was  his  way  of  walking :  some  people  have  a 
dismal  manner  of  walking  that  you  can  notice  a  quar- 
ter of  a  mile  off. 

"Well,"  he  said,  "I'm  determined  to  get  some- 
where: England's  such  a  scrap  of  an  island  anyway, 
that  if  you  stick  to  it  you  must  get  to  the  sea  if  you 
walk  straight  on.  I  wonder  if  I  shall  strike  South- 
ampton or  South  Shields." 

"One  thing  Salisbury  Plain  isn't,"  he  confessed, 
"and  that  is,  flat.  One  is  always  going  uphill,  unless 
one's  going  down,  and  it's  generally  up.  I  wonder 
if  there's  anything  particular  at  the  top  of  this  hill?" 

After  seven  or  eight  minutes  he  found  that  there 
was  a  shepherd  there. 

"If  I  keep  straight  on  shall  I  come  to  anywhere?" 
Rupert  shouted,  not  because  there  was  a  high  wind 
to  speak  against  but  because  he  concluded  that  the 
shepherd  would  certainly  be  deaf. 

"Straight  on  which  way?"  asked  the  shepherd. 

"Any  way,"  said  Rupert  obligingly.  "I'm  not  par- 
ticular." 

"If  ye  aren't  particular  ye'll  probably  lose  yersen," 
observed  the  shepherd. 

"I've  done  that.  Is  there  anything  that  way,  for 
instance?"  (jerking  his  head  to  the  right). 

"There's  Enver  that  way.  'Enver  in  the  Wild 
Down,  nine  mile  from  any  town.'  It's  six  mile." 

"This,  then,  is  clearly  not  a  town.  I  had  come  to 
that  conclusion  myself.  And,  that  way?"  (With  a 
jerk  of  his  head  to  the  left.) 

"That  way  there's  Winterbourne  Money- 
Koran—" 

"Sounds  like  an  Arab  settlement  on  the  Stock 
Exchange,"  thought  Rupert. 

"Money-Koran  (Monachorum)  'cause  there  was 
monks  ther'  once  when  there  was  such  things.  I  live 
thcr' :  it's  two  mile — and  better." 


386  THE  TIDEWAY 

("And  worse,"  thought  Rupert.)  Then  aloud: 
"Is  it  big?    Is  it  a  big  place?" 

"It's  about  as  big  as  Shipton  Regis — ^but  the 
church  is  bigger,  twice  bigger.  The  first  'ouse  you 
comes  to  on  the  road  is  Updown  Manor." 

"Oh!    On  the  road,  is  it?" 

"On  the  road  to  Winterbourne  Money-Koran:  it 
ain't  azackly  on  no  road.  It  stands  back.  There's 
a  avenue  to  it." 

Rupert  had  plenty  of  money,  and  the  shepherd 
did  not  look  as  if  he  had  any.     He  gave  him  half 


a  crown 


Winterbourne  Money-Koran,"  observed  the 
shepherd,  anxious  to  give  the  stranger  as  much  as 
possible  for  his  money,  "is  a  tidy-size  place.  There's 
a  bank  an'all — Wilts  and  Dosset  Branch.  Opens 
Toosdays  and  Fridays  from  ten  to  two  pea^^w. 
You'll  see  Updown  Manor,  there'll  be  lights  and 
all." 

"Besides  the  bank  (this  is  Saturday  P.  M.)  is 
there  an  inn  at  Winterbourne  ?" 

"There's  two  inns  at  Winterbourne  Barons — the 
Swan  and  the  Regent.  ..." 

"How  far  to  Winterbourne  Barons?" 

"Better'n  seven  mile.  At  Winterbourne  Money- 
Koran  there's  the  George,  only  'is  wife's  dead,  she 
is,  died  o'  Thursday,  bin  ailin'  a  long  while,  and 
might  'a  died  anywhen.  And  there's  two  publics,  the 
Ring  o'  Bells  and  the  Blue  Pigeon.  They  lets  beds, 
but  the  George  is  the  best.  Quality  stops  there." 


II 

A  mile  further  on  Rupert  came  to  a  gateway,  on 
each  side  of  which  were  square  pillars  with  stone 
balls  on  the  top,  and  on  the  top  of  the  stone  balls 


A  PRELUDE  IN  WINTER  387 

were  thick  caps  of  snoM^  But  It  had  stopped  snowing 
now,  and  the  moon  was  up. 

A  dozen  yards  from  the  gate  was  a  motor,  and  it 
was  motionless. 

"What  a  bore!"  said  a  gentleman  with  a  young 
voice  who  had  apparently  been  walking  round  the 
motor,  "to  be  hung  up  just  at  your  own  gate  !" 

"I'd  rather  be  hung  up  at  my  own  gate  than  five 
miles  away,"  declared  the  lady,  who  had  been  the 
only  other  occupant  of  the  car,  in  a  voice  that  was 
also  young  and  full  of  good  temper  and  cheerfulness. 

"I'll  go  up  to  the  house  and  get  Peter — if  he  has 
got  back  from  fetching  second  post  letters,"  said 
the  young  gentleman,  "and  we'll  have  to  push  it 
home.  You'd  better  sit  still,  Clarissa.  You'll  only  get 
your  feet  wet  trudging  through  this  snow." 

"Can  I  help  you  to  push?"  suggested  Rupert, 
coming  up  close  to  them. 

"You're  very  kind,"  said  Clarissa. 

"Oh,  I'm  used  to  it !  I  had  a  car  of  my  own  at 
home,  and  it  had  to  be  pushed  sometimes." 

Clarissa  and  her  brother  both  perceived  by  the 
stranger's  voice  that  he  was  a  gentleman;  they  also 
guessed  by  the  very  slight  tinge  of  American  accent 
and  by  his  uniform  that  he  was  one  of  the  Canadians. 

"It  would  be  uncommonly  kind  of  you,"  said  Clar- 
issa's brother. 

Rupert  declared  that  it  was  not  a  bit  kind,  and 
started  pushing. 

"I  expect,"  he  remarked,  "that  the  water's  frozen. 
I  don't  believe  there's  anything  more  the  matter 
with  it." 

"I  wish,"  said  Clarissa's  brother,  "it  had  waited 
to  finish  freezing  another  four  or  five  minutes. 
"  And  he  started  pushing,  too. 

Rupert  was  rather  glad  It  had  not  waited;  he  liked 
Clarissa's  voice. 


388  THE  TIDEWAY 

The  car  yielded  to  their  pushing,  and  moved 
quite  amiably. 

"I'd  better  get  out,"  said  Clarissa.  "I  make  it 
heavier." 

"You'd  better  sit  still,"  said  her  brother. 

"Your  weight  doesn't  make  the  slightest  differ- 
ence," said  Rupert. 

"You  can  get  out  now"  said  Clarissa's  brother, 
when  they  had  reached  the  front  door  of  Updown 
Manor.  "Perhaps  this  gentleman  will  help  me  to 
take  it  round." 

"Certainly,"  said  Rupert;  then  laughing,  "I'm 
Sergeant  Grandmaison,  of  the  hundred  and  thirtieth 
Duke  of  Connaught's  Canadians." 

"Oh,  indeed,"  said  Clarissa's  brother. 

"De  Grandmaison  de  Vieil  Cartel?"  suggested 
Clarissa,  who  knev/  all  sorts  of  things.  A  Grand- 
maison de  Vieil  Cartel  had  fought  against  Wolfe 
at  Quebec,  and  been  taken  prisoner,  and  the  Eng- 
lish had  noted  his  bravery  and  good  conduct. 

"No,  madame,  de  Grandmaison  de  Ste.  Pelagic. 
The  Grandmaison  family  of  Vieil  Cartel  were  our 
cousins — a  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago." 

"When  you  have  been  so  kind  as  to  help  Bruno 
to  take  the  car  round,  you  will  come  in,  won't  you? 
Our  father  and  mother  will  wish  to  thank  you " 

"For  nothing!"  said  Rupert.  "But  I  shall  be 
honored." 

"And  you  must  have  a  drink,"  said  Bruno.  When 
the  two  young  men  arrived  in  the  Oak  Parlor, 
Clarissa  presented  the  stranger  to  her  mother,  who 
looked  like  her  sister,  and  a  very  pretty  sister,  too. 

"This,"  said  the  girl,  "is  M.  de  Grandmaison, 
who  helped  to  get  us  home.  Do  you  say  'Monsieur' 
in  Canada?" 

"In  the  Army  here  we  do  not.  I  am  simply  Ser- 
geant Grandmaison." 


A  PRELUDE  IN  WINTER  389 

He  could  not  help  wondering  how  old,  or  rather 
how  young,  the  young  lady's  mother  could  be. 
Clarissa  was  tall,  and  might  be  twenty,  her  mother 
looked  less  than  thirty.  In  reality  Clarissa  was 
only  eighteen  and  her  mother  was  eight  and  thirty. 

"Where  tvere  you  going?"  asked  Clarissa,  "you 
were  on  the  road  to  Winterbourne,  and  no  camp 
lies  that  way." 

"All  the  same  I  was  going  to  Winterbourne.  I 
had  lost  my  way,  and  a  shepherd  told  me  there  was 
an  inn  there.  Only  'his  wife,'  the  George's  wife, 
'was  dead.'     Still,  I  meant  to  try  the  George." 

"Mrs.  Viney  is  dead,"  said  Clarissa's  mother, 
"and  the  funeral  is  not  till  to-morrow.  Bruno,  take 
Mr.  de  Grandmaison  into  the  dining-room  and  look 
after  him.     Then  bring  him  back  here." 

As  soon  as  the  young  men  were  gone  she  went  to 
her  husband  in  his  study  and  told  him  all  about  it. 
By  the  time  Bruno  and  Rupert  got  back  to  the  Oak 
Parlor  she  was  back  there,  and  her  husband  was 
with  her.  He  had  heard  her  report,  but  liked  to 
see  things  with  his  own  eyes;  apparently  they  satis- 
fied him.  For  almost  as  soon  as  the  young  Cana- 
dian had  been  introduced  to  him  he  said: 

"Must  you  go  back  to  your  camp  to-night?  I 
understand  you  were  thinking  of  finding  the  George 
at  Winterbourne  and  putting  up  there?" 

"Yes,  I  was.  No,  I  have  leave  till  to-morrow 
night." 

"Then  stay  where  you  are.  We  shall  take  as  good 
care  of  you  as  they  would  at  the  George." 

Rupert  told  himself  that  all  this  family  were 
alike  in  one  thing,  a  singular  and  attractive  cordial- 
ity. They  were  not  otherwise  much  alike.  Bruno 
and  Clarissa  were  not  like  each  other,  nor  had  either 
any  great  resemblance  to  their  father  or  mother. 
Clarissa  was  rather  small,  and  very  fair,  whereas 


390  THE  TIDEWAY 

her  mother  was  tall,  and  had  a  quantity  of  very 
dark  hair,  her  eyes  were  a  deep  brown,  and  her 
skin,  not  in  the  least  sallow,  was  of  a  rich  olive 
tint;  Bruno  was  tall,  and  darker  than  his  sister,  but 
he  had  not  her  blue  eyes,  for  his  were  almost  black. 
His  father  was  a  handsome  man,  with  slightly 
aquiline  features;  he  looked  about  five  and  forty. 

Rupert  admired  in  both  the  ladies  a  delightful 
graciousness  that  he  was  sure  was  more  than  the 
mere  graciousness  of  manner;  something  that  was 
not  simply  an  external  of  breeding,  but  sprung  from 
some  interior  quality  of  themselves.  At  first  he  had 
been  inclined  to  imagine  Bruno  less  friendly,  but 
now  he  could  see  that  it  was  only  a  greater  shyness, 
for,  big  as  he  was,  he  was  quite  a  boy,  younger,  as 
Rupert  presently  found,  even  than  his  sister. 

"Lady  Oldershaw  told  me,"  said  Clarissa's 
father,  when  Rupert's  staying  at  Updown  had  been 
settled,  "that  you  were  a  Canadian;  and  now,  of 
course,  I  can  see  it  by  the  letters  on  your  shoulder. 
From  what  part  of  Canada?" 

"From  Quebec,  sir." 

"I  suppose,  then,  that  French  is  your  language." 

"Oh,  yes;  but  if  French  is  my  mother  tongue, 
English  is  my  mother's  tongue.  She  is  American — 
from  Philadelphia." 

"Ah,"  quoted  Clarissa,  "  'Boston  for  what  you 
know.  New  York  for  what  you've  got:  and  Phila- 
delphia for  who  you  are.'  " 

"You  know  that  saying!  I've  often  heard  my 
mother  quote  it,"  said  Rupert. 

"Clarissa,"  declared  her  brother,  "knows  every- 
thing.    We  call  her  Mademoiselle  Sait-Tout." 

"The  truth  is,"  remarked  her  father,  "Clarissa 
has  a  wonderful  memory  for  things  that  don't  mat- 
ter.    She  is  a  repertoire  of  quite  useless  informa- 


tion." 


A  PRELUDE  IN  WINTER  391 

"I  think  she  remembers  charmingly,"  said  Ru- 
pert. "I  assure  you  we  were  brought  up  in  deep 
reverence  of  Philadelphia  pedigrees.  My  mother 
was  of  Scotch  descent,  and  her  name  was  Mac- 
Adam;  I  understand  the  clan  made  its  first  descent 
on  the  lowlands  from  the  Garden  of  Eden." 

"Perhaps,"  said  Lady  Oldershaw  laughing,  "we 
are  relations,  for  my  mother  was  also  a  Miss  Mac- 
Adam  and  also  Scotch,  and  if  she  were  here  she 
would  suffer  no  gibes  about  the  clan,  I  can  tell  you. 
Her  chieftain  was  the  MacAdam  of  Kilcani." 

"Oh,  I've  heard  of  him,"  cried  Rupert,  "but  my 
mother's  great-grandfather  came  to  America  from 
a  place  called  Gleneden — after  the  garden,  no 
doubt.  He  was  the  youngest  of  seven  sons  and  he 
would  have  had  the  second  sight,  only  his  father 
was  the  eldest  son,  instead  of  being  only  the 
seventh." 

"And  haven't  I  often  heard  of  the  Glenedens!" 
said  Lady  Oldershaw.  "They  and  the  Kilcanis  were 
always  at  feud  except  when  they  proclaimed  a  short 
truce  to  harry  the  McGregors.  We  are  cousins, 
you  see.  What  is,  please,  Madame  de  Grand- 
maison's  Christian  name?" 

"Jean,"  said  her  son. 

"There!  And  so  was  my  mother's:  both  Jean 
MacAdam.  Bruno  there  is  going  into  the  Scots 
Guards,  but  my  mother  will  only  think  him  half 
worthy  of  it,  because  he  is  not  Alastair  as  she 
wanted  him  to  be.  However,  we  have  an  Alastair, 
as  you  shall  see,  and  a  David  too,  and  a  Jean." 

In  fact  he  saw  very  soon,  for  five  minutes  after- 
wards they  came  in,  two  boys  of  twelve  and  ten, 
and  with  them  a  little  girl  of  eight.  They  were  es- 
corted by  a  young  lady  to  whom  Lady  Oldershaw 
said,  "Please  don't  go  away,  Ninette.  Here  is  a 
sort  of  compatriot  of  yours  (and  of  mine  tool)    I 


392  THE  TIDEWAY 

want  to  introduce  you — Mademoiselle  Marchand, 
this  gentleman  is  Mr.  de  Grandmaison  who  has 
come  all  the  way  from  Canada  to  fight  for  Eng- 
land and  for  France — and  to  look  for  his  mother's 
relations." 

Ill 

Mademoiselle  Marchand  was  not  at  all  like  the 
traditional  French  governess  of  British  fiction.  She 
was  neither  sallow  nor  lean,  her  eyes  by  no  means 
suggested  little  shallow  drops  of  ink,  and  were 
far  from  being  beady  or  sharp.  She  had  not  thin, 
tight  lips,  nor  was  her  glance  shrewish  and  crafty. 
Her  complexion  was  bright,  as  were  her  rather 
large,  deep  hazel  eyes,  and  her  abundant  hair  was 
of  a  brilliant  auburn.  Her  mouth  had  a  sensitive 
expression,  and  her  glance  as  it  rested  on  the  chil- 
dren was  full  of  friendly  kindness.  And,  if  her 
manner  was  a  little  shy,  it  had  not  the  shut  up, 
compressed  suggestion  of  the  fictional  French  gov- 
erness. As  a  matter  of  fact,  she  was  among  very 
friendly,  kind  people,  whose  kindness  she  fully  de- 
served. Presently  they  were  all  talking  French  to- 
gether, and  Rupert,  though  not  surprised  to  find 
Lady  Oldershaw  and  Clarissa  speaking  it  perfectly, 
had  not  expected  that  Bruno  and  his  father  would 
be  so  fluent.  Clarissa,  on  her  side,  was  a  little 
amused  to  note  that,  though  the  young  Canadian 
spoke  French  without  the  least  tinge  of  American 
accent,  his  English  had  a  distinct  Trans-Atlantic 
savor. 

Ihe  entrance  of  Mademoiselle  Marchand  had 
brought  Rupert  himself  to  a  third  stage  of  impres- 
sion. At  first  he  had  told  himself  that  Clarissa  was 
exactly  the  person  to  fall  in  love  with.  Then  he 
saw  her  mother,  and  told  himself  laughingly  that 


A  PRELUDE  IN  WINTER  393 

it  was  impossible  not  to  fall  in  love  with  her.  And 
finally  Mademoiselle  Marchand  had  arrived. 

That  young  lady — he  was  sure  she  could  not  be 
one  and  twenty — was  not  so  brilliantly  beautiful  as 
either  his  hostess  or  her  daughter,  and  she  had  not 
nearly  so  much  to  say.  Her  dress  was  less  pic- 
turesque than  Lady  Oldershaw's  white  tea-gown  and 
quaint  white  mob  cap  with  pale  blue  ribbons;  and 
it  somehow;'  lacked  the  distinction  of  Clarissa's: 
still  it  was  not  governessy,  and  managed  to  avoid 
the  sort  of  aggressive  neatness  that  young  ladies  in 
her  position  are  apt  to  affect  as  a  point  of  conscience. 

Mademoiselle  Marchand  was  certainly  less  strik- 
ing than  the  other  two  ladies;  all  the  same  Rupert, 
who  had  been  immensely  interested  as  well  as  fas- 
cinated by  Miss  Oldershaw  and  her  mother,  was 
soon  even  more  interested  in  Mademoiselle  Mar- 
chand. Her  silences  were  clearly  not  stupid,  they 
were  merely  modest  and  youthful ;  and,  while  they 
gave  no  suggestion  of  a  watching  reserve,  they 
often  made  him  wonder  whether  this  quiet  girl  was 
not  thinking  more  than  any  of  the  talkers.  He  was 
French  enough  to  think  no  worse  of  a  girl  for  talk- 
ing rather  too  little  than  too  much. 

"Monsieur!"  demanded  Jean  abruptly.  "Have 
you  killed  any  Germans  yet?" 

"Bloodthirsty  child!"  said  her  mother.  "Don't 
you  know  there  are  no  Germans  on  Salisbury 
Plain?" 

"There's  Fraulein  Schmidt  at  the  Selbys',  and  she 
shut  me  in  a  dark  cupboard  when  I  went  to  tea." 

"Mademoiselle,"  said  Rupert  laughing,  "we  don't 
kill  ladies." 

"No,  of  course.  But  you  could  put  her  into  a 
Condensation  Camp." 

"  'Concentration,'  Jean.  Poor  old  Fraulein 
Schmidt!     If  she  was  shut  up  in  a  Concentration 


394  THE  TIDEWAY 

Camp,"  said  Lady  Oldershaw,  "you'd  want  to  go 
and  take  her  all  your  toys." 

"I'd  take  her,"  said  Jean,  "the  old  dolly  with  tow 
hair  because  she  squints,  and  says  'ya'  when  you 
squeeze  her  waist,  like  a  German.  And  she's  spotty. 
And  her  clothes  won't  come  off.  And  when  we 
buried  her  and  dug  her  up  there  was  a  worm  in  her 
shoe." 

"Jean,  I'm  shocked.  Mr.  de  Grandmaison  will 
think  you  learn  these  ungenerous  sentiments  from 
your  mother,  and  it  must  be  Mademoiselle — Ninette, 
I  did  not  think  you  were  so  truculent." 

Certainly  Mademoiselle  Marchand  did  not  look 
truculent.     But  Rupert  laughed  and  said: 

"For  my  part  I  think  Jean's  old  dolly  would  be 
quite  good  enough  for  the  Boche  lady.  We  French 
and  Canadians  have  a  more  wholesome  abhorrence 
of  Germans  than  you  English." 

"But  you  don't  make  war  on  old  governesses," 
said  Lady  Oldershaw. 

"No.  But  we  are  not  so  trustful  as  you  are.  An 
old  German  governess  may  be  an  old  spy;  all  spies 
are  not  young  and  lovely." 

"You  are  encouraging  Jean  in  her  iniquity!  Poor 
Fraulein  Schmidt!  She's  a  very  harmless,  not  very 
engaging,  maid,  who  has  seen  better  days — her 
father  was  a  Prussian  general." 

"Ah!"  laughed  Rupert.  "He  ought  to  have  left 
her  better  provided  for." 

"But  he  didn't.  So  she  earns  her  bread:  and 
what  on  earth  could  she  spy  on  here — in  all  this 
empty  plain,  where  in  her  walks  abroad  she  can 
see  nothing  but  sheep?" 

"That  depends  on  where  she  walks,"  observed 
Rupert.  Lady  Oldershaw  laughed,  and  Bruno 
chipped  in: 

"And  Sir  Heracles  Selby  is  a  general,  and  his  son 


A  PRELUDE  IN  WINTER  395 

is  an  aviator:  after  all,  Mum,  she  might  hear  a 
thing  or  two." 

"And,"  observed  Mademoiselle  Marchand  qui- 
etly, "Fraulein's  dear  brother,  August,  is  a  Prussian 
Colonel.  Perhaps  she  writes  to  him  all  about  the 
sheep." 

Rupert  looked  amused:  Lady  Oldershaw  looked 
slightly  displeased. 

"Look  here!"  she  said,  "I  don't  like  it.  Fraulein 
Schmidt  has  eaten  our  salt,  and  I  don't  admire  this 
sort  of  joking.  She  has  been  with  the  Selbys  ever 
so  long — " 

"Nearly  two  years,"  observed  her  husband  mali- 
ciously, "and  before  that  she  was  with  Sir  Timothy 
Redtapp  (of  the  War  Office)  :  she  evidently  likes 
official  personages." 

"Voila!"    murmured    Mademoiselle    Marchand. 

And  Rupert  laughed  openly. 

"Lady  Oldershaw,"  he  pleaded,  "don't  be  angry! 
No  doubt  your  Fraulein  Schmidt  is  an  exemplary 
personage,  as  the  daughters  of  all  Prussian  Gen- 
erals, and  the  sisters  of  all  Prussian  Colonels,  ought 
to  be.  But  prejudiced  creatures  like  me  and  Jean 
would  not  mind  shutting  her  up  in  a  cupboard." 

"She'd  make  it,"  cried  Jean  with  decision,  "very 
stuffy — that  cupboard." 

Bruno  and  Rupert  laughed  again,  and  Clarissa 
did  not  frown,  but  Lady  Oldershaw  observed 
severely : 

"Jean,  your  remarks  bear  in  upon  me  that  it  is 
your  bedtime.     I  shall  now  ring  for  Nursey." 

"Oh,  Mummy,"  entreated  Jean,  "one  other 
weeny,  teeny  ten  minutes,  and  I'll  take  Fraulein 
Schmidt  when  she's  condensed,  my  best  dolly  who 
shuts  her  eyes  when  she  lies — " 

"Jean!!" 

"Down/"  shouted  Jean,  "and  says  'Papa  !  Papa' !" 


396  THE  TIDEWAY 

"In  memory,"  suggested  Rupert,  "of  the  Prus- 
sian General." 

Lady  Oldershaw  rang  the  bell  firmly. 

"No  teeny  weeny  ten  minutes  for  you,  Jean.  Mr. 
de  Grandmaison  ought  to  be  sent  to  bed  too." 

"Nursey,"  cried  Jean  demurely,  when  a  very 
pleasant-faced  comfortable  woman  appeared  at  the 
door,  "you're  to  take  us  (the  officer  and  I)  to  bed." 

"I'm  not  an  officer  ..."  said  Rupert. 

"Why  not?"  demanded  Jean,  really  interested, 
but  with  a  calculating  eye  on  the  clock. 

"Nursey,"  said  her  mother,  laughing,  but  fully 
alive  to  the  maneuver,  "take  Miss  Jean  at  once. 
Mr.  de  Grandmaison  can  stay." 

IV 

Though  Sir  Bertram  and  Lady  Oldershaw  were 
people  of  what  is  called  "rank  and  fashion"  they 
did  not  send  their  French  governess  to  sup  in  a 
lonely  schoolroom  while  they  dined  with  their  fam- 
ily. At  dinner  all  their  children,  except  little  Jean, 
were  present,  and  Mademoiselle  Marchand  sat  be- 
tween Rupert  and  Bruno.  Certainly  she  had  not 
so  much  to  say  as  Lady  Oldershaw;  and,  except 
when  the  conversation  was  quite  general,  as  it 
mostly  was,  she  talked  more  to  Bruno  than  to  her 
other  neighbor.  Still  Rupert  retained  his  convic- 
tion that  her  quietness  and  comparative  silence  was 
no  sign  of  dulness. 

"Before  the  war,"  Sir  Bertram  told  him,  "we 
were  all  great  politicians  here.  Clarissa  was  our 
Tory.  Bruno  our  fervent  Radical.  Their  mother 
and  I  endeavored  to  improve  our  minds  and  derive 
instruction.  Alastair  gave  a  general  but  unreliable 
support  to  Bruno,  and  David  was  on  Clarissa's  side 
when  he  could  make  out  what  she  was  driving  at. 


A  PRELUDE  IN  WINTER  397 

But  now  it's  the  Millennium,  and  the  strife  of  par- 
ties is  ended.  We  are  all  simply  English  people  and 
keep  our  abuse  for  England's  enemies." 

"So  it  is  with  us,"  said  Rupert.  "We  Canadians 
are  all  English  too — French  Canadians  or  English, 
it  is  all  the  same." 

"If  I  had  two  hearts,  one  should  be  English," 
said  Ninette. 

"My  dear,  it's  a  good  thing  you  haven't," 
laughed  Lady  Oldershaw.  "The  one  that  she  has, 
she  added  to  Rupert,  "is  too  big  for  her  body." 

Rupert  hardly  knew  why  it  gave  him  undoubted 
pleasure  to  hear  this  tribute:  but  it  certainly  did, 
and  he  told  himself  that  the  praise  was  simply  and 
cordially  given.  They  were  evidently,  all  of  them, 
very  fond  of  the  girl,  and  that  in  itself  seemed  to 
him  high  praise.  For,  friendly,  as  they  all  were, 
they  had  a  certain  shrewd  directness,  and  he  did 
not  fancy  them  likely  either  to  praise  or  to  like 
indiscriminately. 

After  dinner  Lady  Oldershaw  and  Rupert  had 
an  opportunity  for  some  short  talk  that  was  more 
confidential. 

"Ninette,"  said  she,  "is  such  a  good  girl:  it  would 
be  natural  for  her  to  be  very  much  depressed,  and 
no  one  could  blame  her  if  she  were  distrait  and 
melancholy,  but  she  is  always  the  same  cheerful 
person.  Her  home  is  in  the  war  zone,  in  fact  in 
a  district  where  the  worst  fighting  is  going  on. 
Many  of  her  near  relations  have  been  taken  pris- 
oners and  she  has  no  news  of  them.  The  houses  of 
others  are  occupied  by  German  OflUcers.  Her 
father  is  dead,  but  the  uncle  and  aunt  with  whom 
she  used  to  live  have  their  home  very  near  the 
fighting  line,  and  from  day  to  day  one  never  knows 
whether  their  village  may  have  fallen  into  the 
enemy's  hands.     When  the  war  broke  out  she  was 


398  THE  TIDEWAY 

about  to  leave  us,  for  Alastair  and  David  will  soon 
be  too  big  for  her,  and  have  to  go  to  preparatory 
schools,  and  she  is  too  advanced  and  clever  to  be  a 
mere  nursery  governess  to  a  tiny  tot  like  Jean. 
But  the  war  came,  and  her  home  must  be  with  us 
till  it  ends.  She  herself  would  like  to  go,  because 
she  would  wish  to  share  any  danger  or  hardship 
that  may  fall  in  the  way  of  her  uncle  and  aunt  who 
brought  her  up.  She  is  a  very  brave  girl,  and  most 
unselfish.  But  M.  and  Madame,  de  le  Grange- 
Brune  wrote  begging  of  her  to  stay  in  England  and 
we  insisted." 

"I  know  that  name.  At  school  I  had  a  friend 
called  Rene  de  la  Grange-Brune :  his  people  came 
to  Canada  under  Louis  XVI." 

"Before  the  Revolution  it  was  a  great  name  in 
France.  But  during  it  they  lost  everything,  and 
they  are  poor  enough  now.  Her  father  was  an 
officer,  and  poor  too,  but  he  was  very  handsome, 
and  I  have  seen  his  portrait:  she  is  rather  like  it. 
I  am  going  to  make  her  sing — Clarissa  has  a  finer 
voice,  but  she  can't  sing  like  Ninette." 

Rupert  was  rather  surprised  at  first  to  notice 
that  Mademoiselle  Marchand  did  not  choose  any 
French  song,  but  old-fashioned  English  and  Scotch 
ballads.  But  he  had  no  notion  how  touching  and 
beautiful  they  could  be :  and  to  him  they  were  very 
far  from  being  stale  or  hackneyed. 

"Sing,"  begged  Lady  Oldershaw,  "  'Rappelle- 
toi'?" 

It  is  not  a  young  girl's  song:  but  a  folk-song,  in 
patois,  supposed  to  be  that  of  a  very  old  peasant, 
crooned  by  a  fireside  in  winter  to  a  wife  as  old  as 
himself.  Unlike  the  modern  song  of  fashion  it  was 
very  long,  and  had  a  patient  monotony,  for  the  air 
scarcely  varied  with  the  verses:  but  it  had  a  whole 
life-story  in  it,  and  rang  every  change  of  idea  from 


A  PRELUDE  IN  WINTER  399 

childish  innocence  and  youthful  hope  to  the  tender 
wistful  resignation  of  lonely  age. 

"Dost  remember?"  it  asked,  "when  we  were  lit- 
tle chits  together,  thou,  ma  mie,  and  I?  Our  play  in 
the  quiet,  sunny  village  street,  our  naughty  truant 
wanderings  in  the  fields,  when  I  made  thee  daisy 
crowns,  and  thy  brother  Jacques  married  us  in  play, 
in  the  cathedral  of  the  woods.  Rappelle-toi,  ma  mie, 
rappelle  toif  Dost  thou  mind  when  we  grew  bigger, 
and  thou  grewest  shy  (but  I  not)  !  And  thou 
wouldst  feign  to  see  me  not  (and  I  seeing  naught  but 
thee!)  as  we  walked  home  from  Vespers  through 
the  little  street.  Rappelle-toi,  ma  mie,  rappelle  toif 
Mindest  thou  of  our  wedding,  and  the  little  home  I 
had  for  thee,  and  the  little  garden  where  I  set  flow- 
ers for  thee,  in  the  sweet-scented  summer  evenings 
after  my  other  work  was  done?  But  other  flowers 
blossomed  on  our  very  hearth,  and  they  were 
sweeter,  fragrant  of  our  love?  Rappelle-toi,  ma 
mie,  rappelle-toif  Then  God  looked  from  heaven 
down  on  them,  and  some  were  too  lovely  for  our 
little  corner  in  the  world,  and  He  asked  for  them, 
and  transplanted  them,  Rappelle-toi,  ma  mie?  But 
He  left  us  Jean  and  Philippine,  and  Marie  and 
Raoul,  and  He  blessed  them  and  made  them  strong, 
to  work  like  us,  and  they  found  each  a  mate  (as 
thou  foundest  me,  and  I  thee)  Rappelle-toi,  ma 
mief  And  in  the  Great  War  Raoul  fell,  and 
Marie's  husband  Jacques,  and  our  tears  fell  with 
the  snow,  Rappelle  tot,  ma  mief  And  now  their 
children  are  gone  home  after  their  play  by  our 
warm  hearth,  but  thou  art  there,  ma  tnie,  I  can  hear 
thee;  though  my  eyes  are  blind,  I  can  see  thee,  for 
thou  changest  not,  and  in  my  heart  thou  standest 
as  at  first,  ma  mie;  I  am  thine,  and  thou  art  mine, 
Rappelle-toi,  rappelle-toi,  ma  mief" 

To  make  of  a  theme  so  simple,  as  old  as  the  heart 


400  THE  TIDEWAY 

of  man,  what  Ninette  made  of  It,  seemed  to  Rupert 
a  sheer  wonder.  He  did  not  wonder  that  no  one 
spoke  when  she  had  finished,  that  the  only  compli- 
ment they  gave  her  was  their  silence,  and  the  look, 
upon  their  faces. 

The  modern  drawing-room  song  is  so  often  a 
brief,  but  almost  desperate  wail  of  passion:  earthly 
enough :  in  Ninette's  song  there  was  no  passion,  and 
no  despair,  and  it  was  not  sad  but  tender  and  wist- 
ful. And  it  was  full  of  love,  not  the  wild  love  of 
an  hour  and  "after  that  the  dark,"  but  of  a  love 
as  long  as  life  and  stronger  than  death. 

After  a  while  they  asked  her  for  more  folk-songs 
of  her  own  pays  in  the  patois  of  her  people:  and 
she  sang  many.  They  had  in  common  with  each 
other  the  same  quality  of  purity  and  sweetness, 
simplicity  and  tenderness,  but  they  were  very  va- 
rious. Some  were  very  gay  and  joyous,  with  the 
fragrance  and  light  of  flowers  and  young  summer: 
others  had  the  patience  of  winter,  but  its  bracing 
vigor  too.  There  were  young  men's  songs  and 
girls'  songs,  and  songs  such  as  the  women  sang  over 
their  washing  of  linen  together  in  the  stream  by  the 
village :  hunting  songs  as  well,  and  odd  monotones, 
but  never  tedious,  songs  such  as  the  plowman  sang 
aloud  to  their  horses  as  they  paced  the  long  furrow. 

Rupert  hardly  noticed — no  one  with  any  real  ap- 
preciation would  have  thought  it  worth  while  to 
notice — that  Ninette's  voice  was  not  In  itself  re- 
markable. She  could  not  have  done  much  with 
songs  requiring  any  great  range,  nor  could  she  have 
sung  to  any  purpose  In  a  large  hall ;  her  gift  was 
not  that  of  power  but  of  sympathy,  not  of  the  throat 
and  chest  but  of  the  heart. 

Rupert  had  heard  plenty  of  great  singers,  and 
had  liked  it  very  well;  he  would  be  well  enough 
content  to   hear  them   again   in   some   huge   opera 


A  PRELUDE  IN  WINTER  401 

house,  but  he  would  not  have  cared  to  be  obliged 
to  hear  any  one  of  them  daily,  in  his  own  home. 
He  thought  it  would  be  almost  a  grace,  more  than 
a  mere  pleasure,  if  he  could  listen  to  Ninette  in  his 
own  home  all  his  life. 

He  lay  awake  long  that  night,  and  the  echoes  of 
those  tender,  simple  songs  of  a  poor  and  patient 
people  sounded  not  merely  in  his  ears  but  in  his 
heart. 

"For  me,"  he  thought,  "the  world  can  never  con- 
tain but  two  people,  and  ..."  He  knew  already 
who,  henceforth,  would  be  for  him  the  other  one. 


PRINTED  BY  BENZIGER  BROTHERS,  NEW  YORK 


AA      000  276  229    2 


